OpenAI is seeking to raise at least $30 billion in a new funding round that could value the artificial intelligence company at around $1.4 trillion, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the discussions. The talks remain at an early stage and the terms could still change.
The proposed financing would give the ChatGPT maker additional breathing room after it pushed back plans for an initial public offering. CEO Sam Altman said earlier this month that the company would not go public this year, describing the timing as wrong as OpenAI focuses heavily on AI safety. According to Bloomberg, investors have shown interest in the new round amid the company’s continued revenue growth.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman
(Photo: TechCrunch)
A $1.4 trillion valuation would mark another dramatic increase for OpenAI. The company completed a funding round in March involving $122 billion in committed capital and a valuation of $852 billion, with investors including SoftBank, Amazon and Nvidia. That round was already among the largest ever assembled in Silicon Valley. Bloomberg had previously reported that OpenAI was considering another raise at a valuation of more than $1.2 trillion.
The new fundraising discussions come as OpenAI faces growing scrutiny over the safety of increasingly capable AI systems. The company said this week that GPT-6.1 Astra, a model planned for release, would not be launched after it failed internal safety checks. Altman has also voiced support for calls by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for stronger external human oversight of advanced AI development.
Those concerns have become increasingly central to the industry as companies race to build more autonomous systems capable of operating with less direct human supervision. For OpenAI, the challenge is becoming a financial one as well: developing and operating frontier AI models requires enormous spending on computing infrastructure, data centers and research even as the company continues to expand its consumer and business products.
OpenAI also used its DevDay developer conference this week to unveil Dots, a new AI agent designed to carry out tasks across multiple applications, along with a new $500 subscription plan offering expanded usage and faster processing. The company has also reduced some usage allowances attached to its existing $200 subscription tier.
The potential $30 billion round would therefore serve as more than another headline-grabbing valuation milestone. It would give OpenAI fresh capital as it delays its entry into public markets, expands its increasingly expensive AI infrastructure and tries to balance the pressure to release more powerful products with growing demands to prove those systems can be deployed safely.