OpenAI raises $110B on $730B pre-money valuation

Source: Hacker News

Funding Overview

OpenAI has raised $110 billion in private funding, announced on Friday morning here, marking one of the largest private funding rounds in history. The round includes:

• $50 billion from Amazon
• $30 billion from Nvidia
• $30 billion from SoftBank

The pre‑money valuation is $730 billion. The round remains open, and OpenAI expects additional investors to join.

“We are entering a new phase where frontier AI moves from research into daily use at global scale. Leadership will be defined by who can scale infrastructure fast enough to meet demand, and turn that capacity into products people rely on.” – OpenAI

As in previous rounds, a significant portion of the investment is likely to be provided as services rather than cash, though the exact split was not disclosed.

OpenAI’s prior round closed in March 2025, raising $40 billion at a $300 billion valuation. At that time it was the largest private funding round on record.

Amazon Partnership

Through its partnership with Amazon, OpenAI will develop a new “stateful runtime environment” that runs OpenAI models on Amazon’s Bedrock platform. The existing AWS partnership, which originally committed $38 billion in compute services, will be expanded by $100 billion.

OpenAI has pledged to consume at least 2 GW of AWS Tranium compute as part of the deal and will build custom models to support Amazon consumer products.

“We have lots of developers and companies eager to run services powered by OpenAI models on AWS,” said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. “Our unique collaboration with OpenAI to provide stateful runtime environments will change what’s possible for customers building AI apps and agents.”

Investor Conditions

The Information previously reported that $35 billion of Amazon’s investment could be contingent on OpenAI either achieving AGI or completing an IPO by the end of the year. OpenAI’s announcement confirms the funding split and notes that the additional $35 billion will arrive “in the coming months when certain conditions are met.”

Nvidia Partnership

OpenAI disclosed fewer details about its Nvidia partnership but committed to using:

• 3 GW of dedicated inference capacity
• 2 GW of training on Vera Rubin systems

Nvidia’s participation has been the subject of speculation, especially after earlier reports of a $100 billion investment in September were later revised downward. In January, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang dismissed rumors that the company was backing away, stating, “We will invest a great deal of money. I believe in OpenAI. The work that they do is incredible.” Source