OpenAI, the firm responsible for ChatGPT, is in the process of securing $110 billion in a significant funding round, which would place the company’s valuation at $840 billion, as per a recent Reuters report. The funding round involves a $50 billion contribution from Amazon, $30 billion from SoftBank, and another $30 billion from Nvidia. This financial backing precedes the highly awaited initial public offering (IPO) of OpenAI, anticipated to take place later this year.
Amazon is set to make an initial investment of $15 billion, with an additional $35 billion to follow upon meeting specific conditions. As part of the agreement, OpenAI will utilize 2 gigawatts of computing power supplied by Amazon’s proprietary Trainium chips. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is poised to become the exclusive third-party cloud provider for OpenAI Frontier, the company’s enterprise platform tailored for constructing and overseeing AI agents, according to the Reuters report.
This collaboration with Amazon does not impact OpenAI’s existing partnerships with Microsoft. Microsoft’s Azure platform will continue to serve as the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI’s application programming interfaces, granting developers access to its models. OpenAI’s in-house products will persist on Azure, with Microsoft retaining exclusive licensing rights and intellectual property access to OpenAI’s models and offerings, as outlined in the Reuters report.
