OpenAI secures $110 billion funding boost from Amazon, Nvidia, SoftBank

Amazon.com Inc. is investing $50 billion in the financing round, OpenAI said

• OpenAI raises $110 billion at a $730 billion valuation
• Amazon, SoftBank, and Nvidia invest heavily in OpenAI
• OpenAI to spend $100 billion on AWS over eight years

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OpenAI has finalised a record-breaking $110 billion funding round at a staggering $730 billion valuation, underscoring the intense global race to build and scale frontier artificial intelligence.

The round, one of the largest private financings in tech history,  will fuel the ChatGPT maker’s push to secure more computing power and top-tier talent as demand for AI tools surges worldwide.

Amazon is investing $50 billion in the round, while SoftBank Group and Nvidia have each committed $30 billion, OpenAI said Friday.

In a statement, the company said, “These partnerships expand our global reach, deepen our infrastructure, and strengthen our balance sheet so we can bring frontier AI to more people, more businesses, and more communities worldwide.”

Explosive product growth

OpenAI highlighted rapid growth across its products.

“You can see that scale in our products. Codex brings the power of a top engineer to anyone who wants to build software. Weekly Codex users have more than tripled since the start of the year to 1.6M. More people are now creating, automating, and shipping software that once required a full engineering team.”

More than 9 million paying business users now rely on ChatGPT for work, the company said, while startups, enterprises and governments are building on its platform.

“ChatGPT is where people start with AI, with more than 900M weekly active users, and we now have more than 50 million consumer subscribers.. Subscriber momentum accelerated meaningfully to start the year, with January and February on track to be the largest months for new subscribers in our history. People use ChatGPT to learn, write, plan, and build. As usage scales, the product improves in ways people feel immediately: faster responses, higher reliability, stronger safety, and more consistent performance.”

The company added, “We are entering a new phase where frontier AI moves from research into daily use at global scale. Leadership will be defined by who can scale infrastructure fast enough to meet demand, and turn that capacity into products people rely on. This funding and these partnerships let us do both, and move faster on our mission to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity.”

The new valuation also boosts the value of the OpenAI Foundation’s stake in OpenAI Group to over $180 billion, strengthening what is already one of the most well-resourced nonprofits globally.

Amazon tie-up deepens

The investment tightens OpenAI’s relationship with Amazon, which has previously backed rival Anthropic. As part of the agreement, OpenAI will use Amazon’s in-house AI chips, Trainium, and jointly develop customised AI models for Amazon’s engineering teams.

OpenAI will also spend an additional $100 billion on Amazon Web Services (AWS) over the next eight years. In November, the two companies had announced a separate deal under which OpenAI would use about $38 billion in AWS services over seven years.

Meanwhile, Microsoft, one of OpenAI’s largest earlier backers and formerly its exclusive infrastructure partner, said ties remain intact.

“Nothing about today’s announcements in any way changes the terms of the Microsoft and OpenAI relationship,” the companies said in a joint statement Friday.

Earlier this month, Anthropic raised $30 billion in funding from investors including Nvidia and Microsoft, at a $380 billion valuation.

Big bets, big risks

The fresh commitments reflect a growing trend of circular financing deals between AI startups and chipmakers or cloud providers. While these partnerships aim to secure the massive infrastructure required to power advanced AI models, analysts warn they could amplify losses if demand falls short of expectations.

For now, however, the message from Silicon Valley is clear: the AI arms race is accelerating, and the sums being deployed are rewriting the record books.