OpenAI closes $40B funding round as enterprise AI spending hits record highs - Silicon Canals

"OpenAI has officially closed the largest private funding round in history: $40 billion at a $300 billion valuation, led by SoftBank with participation from Microsoft, Thrive Capital, and a slate of sovereign wealth funds. The deal transforms OpenAI from a research lab with nonprofit roots into one of the most valuable private companies on Earth, sitting alongside SpaceX in a rarefied category of pre-IPO giants that already operate at the scale of mid-cap public firms."

"Training and running frontier AI models requires enormous clusters of specialized chips, and OpenAI is locked in a hardware arms race with Google DeepMind, Anthropic, Meta, and a growing cohort of well-funded Chinese labs. SoftBank's involvement is particularly notable because Masayoshi Son has simultaneously committed to spending $100 billion on AI infrastructure in the United States through the Stargate joint venture with OpenAI, a project that envisions massive new data centers across Texas and other states."

"OpenAI reported $3.4 billion in annualized revenue earlier this year, with a growing share coming from business customers deploying GPT-4 and its successors across customer service, software development, legal review, and internal knowledge management."

OpenAI completed the largest private funding round in history at $40 billion, valuing the company at $300 billion. Led by SoftBank with participation from Microsoft, Thrive Capital, and sovereign wealth funds, the deal elevates OpenAI to the scale of mid-cap public companies. The capital will fund compute infrastructure for training frontier AI models, research initiatives, and enterprise product expansion. OpenAI is engaged in a hardware arms race with competitors including Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and Meta. SoftBank is simultaneously investing $100 billion in AI infrastructure through the Stargate joint venture with OpenAI, focusing on data centers across Texas and other states. OpenAI reported $3.4 billion in annualized revenue, with growing enterprise adoption across customer service, software development, legal review, and knowledge management applications.

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