OpenAI valued at $500 billion after $6.6 billion share sale

"OpenAI has completed a secondary share sale worth $6.6 billion. This brings the company's valuation to $500 billion, an increase of $200 billion compared to March this year. According to various media outlets, this is the highest valuation ever for a private company. This was reported by SiliconAngle. The sale was open to current and former employees who had owned shares for at least two years."

"Among the buyers were T. Rowe Price, Dragoneer Investment Group, and Thrive Capital, which also invested heavily last year. SoftBank and Abu Dhabi-based MGX also participated. They are also involved in OpenAI's Stargate initiative, a $500 billion project to build a network of data centers in the United States with a combined capacity of more than 10 gigawatts. However, OpenAI is not only expanding its infrastructure in the US."

"During a meeting in Seoul with President Lee Jae-myung, agreements were made to accelerate the production of advanced memory chips and to investigate locations for new data centers. Specific attention will be paid to regions outside Seoul in order to spread economic growth more evenly. SK Telecom and several Samsung subsidiaries are also involved. Samsung and SK also want to deploy ChatGPT Enterprise within their own organizations."

OpenAI completed a $6.6 billion secondary share sale that increased the company's valuation to $500 billion, $200 billion higher than in March. The sale was open to current and former employees with at least two years' ownership and sold less than two-thirds of the initially planned more than $10 billion of shares. Buyers included T. Rowe Price, Dragoneer, Thrive Capital, SoftBank, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX. OpenAI is pursuing the Stargate initiative to build US data centers exceeding 10 gigawatts and is expanding into Norway, the UAE, the UK, and South Korea. Partnerships with Samsung and SK involve data centers and ChatGPT Enterprise deployment. Korean chipmakers plan up to 900,000 wafers per month, about 40% of global supply. OpenAI expects to spend roughly $350 billion on server rentals by 2030, complicating rapid profitability while reflecting strong investor confidence.

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