TLDR
- Led by SoftBank, OpenAI achieves a groundbreaking $40 billion funding round, placing the company's valuation at $300 billion.
- ChatGPT's user base now boasts 500 million active weekly participants, with a staggering increase of one million new users in just an hour.
- Exciting developments ahead as OpenAI plans to unveil its inaugural open-weight language model, equipped with reasoning capabilities, in the coming months.
- OpenAI anticipates a revenue surge, expecting a threefold increase to $12.7 billion this year, although positive cash flow won't be realized until 2029.
- Tied to the expansive $500 billion Stargate Project, the funding involves collaborations with SoftBank, Oracle, and additional partners to establish AI data centers.
OpenAI announces a record-setting $40 billion funding round, marking the largest private tech investment ever. SoftBank's leadership in the round values the ChatGPT creator at an impressive $300 billion.
Leading the investment charge, SoftBank commits $30 billion, joined by Microsoft and backers like Coatue, Altimeter, and Thrive with a combined $10 billion pledge.
Structured with a $10 billion immediate payment, this deal foresaw the remainder of $30 billion slated to close by 2025.
The funding has a pivotal clause: SoftBank's investment may reduce to $20 billion if OpenAI doesn't transition to a for-profit by year's end.
OpenAI's current organization involves a non-profit overseer and a capped-profit partnership crafted in 2019, a setup contested legally by co-founder Elon Musk.
With valuations scarcely trailing SpaceX at $350 billion, OpenAI ties with ByteDance, making it a top-tier private entity globally.
OpenAI's Strategic Agenda: Allocating the $40 Billion
Using the inflow of capital to propel its AI research frontiers and bolster computational resources, OpenAI earmarks approximately $18 billion towards the Stargate Project.
Introduced in January, the Stargate Project aspires to develop AI data centers throughout the United States within a four-year timeline, in alliance with Oracle and SoftBank.
ChatGPT now serves an astounding 500 million weekly users, leaping from 400 million users just a month prior.
CEO Sam Altman updated users on social media, celebrating a rapid influx of two million new users over a mere five days, noting a singular hour surge of one million additional users.
Users are gleeful over the new image capabilities in ChatGPT.
but our GPUs are melting.
Temporary usage limits are being put in place to improve efficiency as OpenAI works on optimizing performance. With hopes of a short duration.
Expect the free version of ChatGPT to soon offer three generations per day.
— Sam Altman (@sama) March 27, 2025
Following a significant enhancement to ChatGPT's image-creation functionality, the tool went viral by enabling users to craft art in a distinct Studio Ghibli style.
The popularity of this tool overwhelmed the infrastructure, prompting Altman to request a slowdown from users and implement interim rate controls due to GPU demands.
Amidst investment news, Altman sets forth a plan to launch a novel 'open-weight' language model, OpenAI's first since GPT-2, incorporating reasoning faculties.
The emeritus comes as OpenAI restructures managerial roles. Altman will shift his focus primarily toward research and product innovation, away from daily administrative duties.
Brad Lightcap, as Chief Operating Officer, will assume larger responsibilities, orchestrating business operations while Altman steers the advancement of AI capabilities.
Rapid growth hasn't precluded fiscal challenges, with OpenAI projecting a tripling in revenue to $12.7 billion in the current year, rising from last year's $3.7 billion recurring income.
However, forecasts indicate that OpenAI may not attain positive cash flow until 2029, when the company anticipates annual revenue could touch $125 billion.
The investment highlights OpenAI's mission of cultivating artificial general intelligence (AGI) with global humanitarian benefits.
SuRo Capital's CEO, Mark Klein, and an OpenAI investor, hinted at a potential public offering for the company, forecasting it as a prime contender among imminent IPOs.
This monumental deal eclipses all prior private funding amounts, surpassing Ant Group's $14 billion record from 2018.
Coinciding with OpenAI's investment is CoreWeave's IPO, yet their stocks faced a 7% drop post-opening, underscoring market volatility.
This funding mirrors the intensifying race in the generative AI landscape, as giants like Google and Amazon contend with startups such as Anthropic and Perplexity in agent-centric product development.
