OpenAI Seeks Up to $100B in New Funding at Valuation Near $830B

OpenAI is in discussions with investors on a financing round that could raise as much as $100 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The talks involve a valuation range that reaches roughly $830 billion, though terms remain under negotiation and no agreement has been finalized.

The company is targeting the first calendar quarter of next year to complete the raise. People involved in the discussions said potential participants include large institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds, reflecting the scale of capital being sought. The structure of the round, including investor allocation and governance terms, is still being shaped.

Earlier discussions around the fundraise referenced a lower valuation, closer to $750 billion, indicating that pricing remains fluid as investor interest and capital commitments are assessed.

OpenAI’s capital needs have expanded rapidly over the past year as the company has shifted from primarily training models to operating them at scale. Running large language models in production requires continuous access to high-performance computing, with inference workloads consuming far more resources than early-stage development.

Unlike training runs, which can be scheduled and partially offset through cloud credits and long-term partnerships, inference costs scale directly with user demand. As usage grows across consumer products, enterprise services, and developer tools, those expenses are funded largely through cash rather than credits.

The company has also committed to multi-year infrastructure arrangements tied to data centers and specialized hardware. Several of those agreements involve capacity reservations rather than on-demand usage, increasing fixed costs regardless of short-term revenue fluctuations.

At the same time, OpenAI has accelerated the pace of model releases and expanded its platform offerings, including APIs, enterprise deployments, and custom tooling. Each expansion adds incremental operating and support costs alongside compute spending.

Competition among large AI developers has also driven parallel investment cycles across the sector. Companies building frontier-scale models are committing capital well ahead of monetization timelines, placing pressure on balance sheets and increasing reliance on external funding.

Hardware availability has further shaped spending decisions. Supply constraints in advanced memory components and high-performance accelerators have limited how quickly new capacity can come online. As a result, firms have increasingly sought guaranteed access through pre-purchase agreements and long-term contracts.

In parallel with private fundraising discussions, OpenAI has evaluated additional financing options, including a potential public offering at a later stage. Such a move has not been formally announced and remains exploratory.

The company has also held talks with major technology firms regarding strategic investments that would combine capital contributions with access to proprietary computing hardware. These discussions are separate from the current fundraising effort and have not resulted in disclosed agreements.

OpenAI is reported to be generating annualized revenue of approximately $20 billion, though the company does not publicly disclose profitability. Private-market data indicates OpenAI held more than $64 billion in cash and equivalents following earlier financing activity. Its most recent secondary transaction valued the company at roughly $500 billion.

Discussions around the new funding round are ongoing, and the final size, valuation, and investor mix have not been determined.

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