OpenAI lands $110bn round, valued at $840bn, as Amazon invests $50bn and 2GW Trainium

OpenAI’s $110 billion raise dwarfs its $40 billion round from a year ago, positioning the firm for a “mega‑IPO” slated for later this year, according to The Guardian. The capital infusion includes a $50 billion Amazon commitment, a $30 billion pledge from SoftBank, and a matching $30 billion from Nvidia, making the round the largest private tech financing on record, as reported by Crunchbase News. The deal also ties Amazon to an exclusive cloud partnership, obligating OpenAI to consume 2 GW of Amazon’s custom Trainium silicon for its Frontier enterprise platform, per Tom’s Hardware.

The funding arrives as OpenAI’s user base swells. TechCrunch notes that ChatGPT now logs 900 million weekly active users and 50 million paying subscribers, with January and February delivering the strongest subscriber growth in the company’s history. The surge in consumer and enterprise demand underpins the valuation jump to $840 billion, a figure The Guardian describes as “more than double” the prior year’s valuation.

Amazon’s hardware commitment signals a strategic shift toward proprietary AI infrastructure. Tom’s Hardware explains that the 2 GW of Trainium chips will power OpenAI’s next‑generation models, while granting Amazon exclusive rights to host the Frontier platform. This deep integration is expected to lock in a significant portion of OpenAI’s compute workload on AWS, reinforcing Amazon’s position as the dominant cloud provider for frontier AI workloads.

SoftBank and Nvidia’s participation underscores the broader industry bet on OpenAI’s scaling ambitions. The Guardian reports that SoftBank’s $30 billion investment reflects its confidence in AI’s long‑term revenue potential, while Nvidia’s equal stake highlights the chipmaker’s reliance on OpenAI as a marquee customer for its GPUs and future hardware. Together, the three backers provide both capital and critical technology partnerships that could accelerate OpenAI’s roadmap toward “AI for everyone,” a phrase used in the company’s own announcement.

Regulatory and governance concerns linger. Wired revealed that OpenAI recently terminated an employee for misusing confidential information on prediction‑market platforms, indicating heightened internal controls as the firm expands. While the funding round fuels growth, it also places the company under intensified scrutiny from investors and regulators alike, who will watch how OpenAI balances rapid scaling with responsible AI stewardship.