OpenAI lands record $110 billion investment backed by Nvidia, Amazon, and SoftBank

Sovereign funds and tech giants anchor historic AI capital raise

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What just happened? OpenAI has secured commitments for a funding round of up to $110 billion, pushing its valuation to $730 billion. The investment – anchored by Nvidia, Amazon, and SoftBank – cements the ChatGPT developer's position as the most heavily backed company in the global artificial intelligence race.

People familiar with the matter told the Financial Times that the deal marks a major step toward a potential initial public offering later this year, even amid warnings of speculative excess across the AI sector. The scale dwarfs previous records, including Anthropic's $30 billion funding earlier this year and OpenAI's own $41 billion raise in 2025, which at the time was the largest in the startup world.

Unlike traditional venture rounds, most of OpenAI's new financing comes from strategic corporate investors rather than venture capital firms. Nvidia and SoftBank each committed $30 billion, to be paid in three installments, while Amazon pledged $15 billion upfront and another $35 billion contingent on either an IPO or the development of artificial general intelligence.

That investment ties directly to a sweeping new partnership unveiled Friday: OpenAI will spend $100 billion over eight years on Amazon's chips and computing power, supplementing an existing $38 billion agreement. The companies also plan to co-develop a custom AI model for Amazon's consumer ecosystem.

OpenAI said that its long-standing arrangement with Microsoft, its largest shareholder, remains intact, including Microsoft's exclusive license to OpenAI's core intellectual property.

_{Image credit: the Financial Times}

A portion of the new funding, roughly $10 billion, is expected to come from sovereign wealth funds and global investment firms now finalizing commitments. OpenAI's balance sheet already holds about $40 billion, money that will continue to fund losses through the end of the decade. Executives project positive free cash flow by 2030, contingent on securing enough compute capacity to support expansion.

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Most of the incoming capital will be funneled into data center buildouts, chip purchases, and cloud contracts with investors like Amazon and Nvidia. The company's non-profit affiliate, the OpenAI Foundation, may also sell up to $10 billion worth of its $180 billion stake to finance additional grantmaking and recruitment efforts.

OpenAI was valued at $500 billion as recently as October during an employee stock sale, and its financial forecasts remain ambitious. Revenues reached roughly $13 billion last year and are expected to double to $30 billion in 2026, possibly surpassing $60 billion by 2027, according to a person with knowledge of internal projections. These figures depend heavily on OpenAI's access to computational resources.