OpenAI, the company behind the widely used artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, announced Friday a massive $110 billion funding round, solidifying its position as one of the world’s most valuable technology companies. The investment, led by Amazon, SoftBank, and Nvidia, reflects the intense competition and rapid growth in the artificial intelligence sector and the increasing demand for computing power to support these advancements.
Amazon is contributing $50 billion to the round, while SoftBank and Nvidia are each investing $30 billion, according to a company statement. The funding boosts OpenAI’s pre-money valuation to $730 billion, a significant increase from its $500 billion valuation in October, as reported by CNBC. Additional investors are expected to join the round in the coming weeks. This substantial influx of capital will allow OpenAI to expand its reach, deepen its infrastructure, and accelerate the development and deployment of its AI technologies.
The investment comes as OpenAI continues to experience rapid user growth. The company revealed it now has over 900 million weekly active users of ChatGPT and more than 50 million paying subscribers. Beyond individual users, more than 9 million corporate users are leveraging the platform for productivity and development purposes. Codex, OpenAI’s tool for programmers, has also seen its user base triple since the beginning of the year, reaching 1.6 million weekly users.
A Strategic Partnership with Amazon
The funding round is coupled with a deepened strategic partnership between OpenAI and Amazon. Amazon Web Services (AWS) will serve as the exclusive third-party cloud distribution provider for OpenAI’s enterprise platform, Frontier. This collaboration extends an existing $38 billion agreement between OpenAI and AWS by an additional $100 billion over the next eight years. The partnership will focus on developing customized AI models to power Amazon’s customer-facing applications.
A key component of the collaboration is the development of a “Stateful Runtime Environment,” designed to enable applications to maintain context and memory across processes. This service will be available through Amazon Bedrock. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy expressed his enthusiasm for the partnership on social media, stating, “Developers and companies of all types are eager to run OpenAI-based services on AWS, and our unique collaboration will provide them with a stateful runtime environment powered by OpenAI’s cutting-edge intelligence on Amazon Bedrock.”
Excited about our new strategic partnership with OpenAI! Developers and companies of all types are eager to run OpenAI-based services on AWS, and our unique collaboration will provide them with a stateful runtime environment, powered by OpenAI’s cutting-edge intelligence on Amazon Bedrock. https://t.co/WwJqJqJqJq
— Andy Jassy (@ajassy) February 27, 2026
Nvidia Provides Infrastructure Support
In addition to the financial investment, OpenAI is securing crucial infrastructure through a new agreement with Nvidia. This pact includes access to 3 gigawatts (GW) of dedicated inference capacity and 2 GW for training on Nvidia’s “Vera Rubin” systems, supplementing OpenAI’s existing infrastructure based on Hopper and Blackwell chips. This expanded capacity will be vital for handling the growing demands of OpenAI’s AI models.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman emphasized the importance of these partnerships, stating, “These partnerships expand our global reach, deepen our infrastructure, and strengthen our balance sheet so we can bring frontier AI to more people, more businesses, and more communities around the world.” He also noted that “AI is going to happen everywhere. It’s transforming the whole economy, and the world needs a lot of collective computing power to meet the demand,” as reported by CNBC.
The Future of AI Development
The substantial investment and strategic alliances signal a new phase of growth for OpenAI and the broader AI industry. The company is also focusing on efficiency, with Amazon’s Jassy highlighting OpenAI’s adoption of Trainium chips, which offer a 30% to 40% better price-performance ratio compared to comparable GPUs. This focus on cost-effectiveness will be crucial as OpenAI scales its operations and expands its offerings.
The collaboration with Amazon will also facilitate the development of customized AI models tailored for Amazon’s consumer applications, complementing its Nova family of models. This integration promises to enhance the user experience across Amazon’s diverse range of services.
Looking ahead, OpenAI will continue to refine its models and expand its capabilities, driven by the influx of capital and the strategic partnerships forged with Amazon and Nvidia. The next major milestone will be the full rollout of the new Stateful Runtime Environment through Amazon Bedrock, expected in the coming months.
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