OpenAI raises $40bn in funding, announces an open gen AI

On Monday, OpenAI made two announcements. First, it raised $40 billion in the latest funding round from SoftBank Group, valuing it at $300 billion —nearly double its $157 billion valuation in October 2024.

SoftBank will initially infuse $10 billion, followed by an additional $30 billion by year-end, contingent upon specific conditions.

One critical requirement is for OpenAI to transition to a for-profit model. If not met, OpenAI will forfeit up to 25% of the agreed-upon funding amount.

This investment will support OpenAI’s $500 billion Stargate initiative, a significant AI project being developed in partnership with Oracle, SoftBank, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX.

Second, it is building its first more open generative AI to compete with Meta’s Llama and DeepSeek, a significant shift from OpenAI’s usual, more secured, closed AI models.

OpenAI’s latest image generator tool added one million users within the first hour after launch, thus heating its graphic processing units.

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