The media published information according to which OpenAI is currently negotiating a new $40 billion funding round.
It is expected that after the mentioned funding round, the market capitalization of the specified startup, which is one of the main players in the global artificial intelligence industry, will reach $300 billion. The media, citing insiders, claim that the fundraising process will be led by SoftBank, which will invest between $15 billion and $25 billion in OpenAI. The startup will receive the rest of the financing from other investors. The insiders referred to by the media have used the right of anonymity.
According to information published by journalists, the startup will spend part of the expected financing on the payment of $18 billion, which OpenAI has committed to contribute to the infrastructure joint venture Stargate AI. It is worth noting that the mentioned venture also includes SoftBank.
Also, part of the expected investments in OpenAI, which has developed one of the most popular artificial intelligence-powered chatbots in the world ChatGPT, will be aimed at supporting the startup’s money-losing business operations.
It is worth noting that SoftBank has already invested in its relationship with OpenAI. If a new agreement is reached on the interaction of the two brands, the amount of the mentioned financing will grow to $40 billion. In this potential case, the Japanese conglomerate will become the largest investor in the ChatGPT developer and will overtake Microsoft in terms of the corresponding indicator.
According to media reports, OpenAI’s likely market capitalization of $300 billion will make the brand the world’s second-most valuable startup after Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Also, in this case, the valuation that was achieved by the ChatGPT developer in October, when it raised $6.6 billion, will be doubled.
The news about the new funding round was published a few days after the value of shares of technology companies showed a sharp drop amid the launch of an artificial intelligence model from the Chinese brand DeepSeek. The mentioned AI model has challenged the dominance of the United States in the global digital intelligence industry. DeepSeek also spent a small amount on the development of its product by the standards of the corresponding average indicators in the area of artificial intelligence. Against this background, doubts began to circulate about the need for huge investments in the elaboration of machine intelligence.
The artificial intelligence model developed by DeepSeek is comparable in terms of performance to similar products from OpenAI and Meta. Also, the mentioned AI model uses substantially fewer Nvidia chips. DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence model has become the most popular free app in the Apple App Store.
Last week, United States President Donald Trump announced an up-to-$500 billion Stargate project, which aims to build big artificial intelligence-focused data centers in the US. In this case, equity partners are SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX, an AI-focused sovereign wealth fund in Dubai. OpenAI co-leads the venture with SoftBank and will have operational responsibility for the project. The initial technology partners of the project will be Oracle, Arm, Microsoft, Nvidia, and OpenAI. SoftBank chief executive officer Masayoshi Son will chair Stargate.
It’s worth noting that against the background of the active development of artificial intelligence, the issue of cybersecurity has become more urgent. Scammers also have access to AI tools. To counteract the corresponding threat in the cyber environment, personal awareness of users is important. For example, an Internet search query such as how to know if my camera is hacked will allow anyone to get information about signs of unauthorized access to the device. Digital literacy is an effective tool for countering cybercrime.
