OpenAI secures historic $110 billion new funding led by Amazon and Nvidia
- Marijan Hassan - Tech Journalist
- Mar 4
- 2 min read
OpenAI finalized a record-breaking $110 billion funding round on Friday, last week, cementing its position as the undisputed heavyweight of the artificial intelligence era. The massive capital injection, the largest private venture deal in history, propels OpenAI’s post-money valuation to a staggering $840 billion, placing the startup within striking distance of the "Trillion Dollar Club" alongside tech giants like Apple and Microsoft.
The round was led by a "power trio" of strategic investors: Amazon ($50 billion), Nvidia ($30 billion), and SoftBank ($30 billion), signaling a shift from speculative software investment to the build-out of "heavy" AI infrastructure.
The Amazon alliance
The most significant development is the $50 billion commitment from Amazon, marking a dramatic expansion of OpenAI's partner ecosystem beyond its long-standing exclusivity with Microsoft.
Amazon is providing an initial $15 billion infusion, with the remaining $35 billion contingent on specific performance milestones, including the achievement of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) or a successful IPO.
While Microsoft remains the exclusive provider for OpenAI's public APIs, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has secured the exclusive right to host "OpenAI Frontier" a new enterprise-grade platform specifically for building and managing autonomous AI agents.
In a move to reduce reliance on standard GPUs, OpenAI has committed to utilizing 2 gigawatts of compute capacity powered by Amazon’s in-house Trainium chips.
Nvidia and SoftBank: Securing the Supply Chain
The involvement of Nvidia and SoftBank underscores the intense competition for the physical resources needed to run large-scale models.
NVIDIA’s $30 billion investment is effectively a "strategic recircularization" of capital. OpenAI will use the funds to secure 3 GW of dedicated inference capacity and 2 GW of training on Nvidia’s latest Vera Rubin systems, ensuring OpenAI remains at the front of the line for the world’s most powerful chips.
For Masayoshi Son, this $30 billion check is the culmination of his "Artificial Superintelligence" strategy. It follows a previous $40 billion round in 2025, making SoftBank one of OpenAI’s largest and most consistent financial backers.
Unprecedented growth: 900 million active users
Accompanying the funding news, OpenAI released staggering growth metrics to justify its nearly trillion-dollar valuation:
ChatGPT has surpassed 900 million weekly active users.
The platform now boasts over 50 million consumer subscribers and 9 million paying business users.
Use of Codex, the company’s AI software engineer agent, has tripled since the start of 2026, with 1.6 million weekly users now shipping code that previously required entire engineering teams.
The road to a $1 trillion IPO
Industry analysts at UBS and Morgan Stanley are now projecting that this funding round is the final "pre-flight" check before a mega-IPO later in 2026.
If current subscriber momentum holds, experts believe OpenAI could go public at a valuation exceeding $1 trillion, making it the largest initial public offering in history.
The new valuation increases the value of the OpenAI Foundation’s stake to over $180 billion, creating the most well-resourced philanthropic entity in human history.
