Openai in talks to raise funding that would value ai startup at up to $ 340 billion

Openai is in talks to raise up to $ 40 billion in a fund that would lift the artificial intelligence company’s valuation to as high as high as $ 340 billion, CNBC HAS CONFIRMED.

Masayoshi son’s softbank would lead the round, contributing between $ 15 billion and 25 billion and 25 billion, according to two people family family with the Negotiation with the Negotias with to be named Becauses Arenging. Softbank would surpass Microsoft As Openai’s Top Backer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the talks.

Part of the funding may be used for openai’s commission to stargate, a joint venture between softbank, openai and Oracle That was introduced by President Donald Trump Last week, the sources said. The plan calls for billions of dollars to be investment in us ai infrastructure.

Openai was last valied at $ 157 billion by private investors. In late 2022, the company launched its chatgpt chatbot and kicked off the boom in generative ai. Openai Closed its latest $ 6.6 billion round in Octobergearing up to aggressively compes with Elon musk’s XAI, as well as microsoft, Google, Amazon and anthropic.

Meanwhile, Chinese Startup Lab Deepsek is blowing up in the US, Presenting Fresh Competition to OPENAI. Deepsek Saw Its App soar to the top of Apple’s App Store Rankings This Week and Roled Us Markets on Reports that its powerful model was trained at a fraction of the cost of us competitors.

At an event in washington, dc, on thuresday hosted by opinai, ceo sam altman said Deepsek is “cleaned a great model.”

“This is a reminder of the level of competition and the need for democratic al to win,” He said. He said it also points to the “level of interest in reasoning, the level of interest in open source.”