OpenAI in talks for $50 billion funding round with Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds

OpenAI is working to raise fresh capital from investment funds controlled by Middle Eastern governments, according to sources who spoke with CNBC this Wednesday.

The company hopes to bring in roughly $50 billion through this financing effort, though the final amount may shift since formal agreements haven’t been completed yet. A close source shared these details on the condition their name not be used because the information remains private.

Altman travels to UAE as funding round takes shape

Sam Altman, who leads OpenAI as its chief executive, traveled to the United Arab Emirates to take part in the investment conversations, the source confirmed. The company expects to wrap up this funding round during the first three months of the year.

OpenAI set off the current wave of interest in artificial intelligence when it released ChatGPT, its conversational AI tool, back in 2022. Since that launch, the company has grown into one of the world’s most rapidly expanding commercial operations. It has pulled in many billions of dollars from backers while working to build larger systems, create improved technology, and add new capabilities.

The company completed a $40 billion investment round last year with SoftBank taking the lead role. That deal set a record as the biggest private technology funding ever documented. Microsoft, which has been a central investor for years, joined that round along with Coatue, Altimeter and Thrive.

OpenAI also finished selling $6.6 billion worth of shares this past October. That transaction pushed the company’s total value to $500 billion.

NVIDIA partnership brings major infrastructure investment

The firm recently made another major announcement involving NVIDIA. The two companies said they plan to work together in what they’re calling a landmark arrangement. Under this deal, NVIDIA will provide at least 10 gigawatts of its computing systems for OpenAI’s upcoming AI infrastructure. OpenAI will use these systems to train and operate its next wave of models as it works toward what it calls superintelligence. To make this happen, including building data centers and securing power capacity, NVIDIA plans to put up to $100 billion into OpenAI as the new systems get installed. The first portion of this setup should start running in the second half of 2026 using NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin platform.

“NVIDIA and OpenAI have pushed each other for a decade, from the first DGX supercomputer to the breakthrough of ChatGPT,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “This investment and infrastructure partnership mark the next leap forward — deploying 10 gigawatts to power the next era of intelligence.”

“Everything starts with compute,” said Sam Altman. “Compute infrastructure will be the basis for the economy of the future, and we will utilize what we’re building with NVIDIA to both create new AI breakthroughs and empower people and businesses with them at scale.”

OpenAI will treat NVIDIA as its main partner for computing and networking as it grows what it calls its AI factory. The two companies will coordinate their plans so OpenAI’s model and infrastructure software work well with NVIDIA’s hardware and software.

OpenAI now counts more than 700 million people using its services each week. The company has also seen strong uptake from large corporations, smaller companies and people who build software. This new partnership with NVIDIA should help OpenAI move forward with its stated goal of building artificial general intelligence that helps everyone.

NVIDIA and OpenAI said they expect to nail down the remaining details of this new phase of their partnership within the next few weeks.

If you’re reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.