OpenAI has announced that it has raised $40 billion in investment to boost AI research. But that figure could potentially be cut by $10 billion.
OpenAI has announced that it has raised $40 billion in investment to boost AI research. But that figure could potentially be cut by $10 billion.
OpenAI announced the new funding on its blog, where it also said the company would be valued at $300 billion after conversion. «This allows us to further push the boundaries of AI research, scale our computing infrastructure, and provide increasingly powerful tools to the 500 million people who use ChatGPT every week,» the company said.
The lead investor was Japanese tech giant SoftBank Group, which provided 75% of the money, CNBC reported, with the remainder coming from Microsoft and other investment groups, including Coatue, Altimeter and Thrive.
CNBC, citing a source familiar with the matter, reports that about $18 billion is planned to be spent on the OpenAI Stargate infrastructure project, the creation of which Donald Trump announced in late January. The goal of the Stargate project is to create a network of artificial intelligence data centers across the United States. The project has become a bone of contention between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and billionaire Elon Musk.
However, OpenAI faces a risk that its investment will be reduced by at least $10 billion if the company fails to restructure into a commercial company by December 31. OpenAI was originally created as a non-profit organization. According to a source familiar with the deal, cited by Tekedia, SoftBank’s investment of $30 billion will be reduced to $20 billion, while the remaining $10 billion, coming from other investors, will remain unchanged.
