ChatGPT maker OpenAI has raised 6.6 billion US dollars (£5 billion) in its latest funding round, the largest such deal of all time, valuing the company at 157 billion dollars (£118 billion).
The deal makes OpenAI one of the most valuable start-ups in the world, with the funding round topping the six billion dollars raised by Elon Musk’s xAI earlier this year.
The funding was led by investment firm Thrive Capital, but also included tech giants Microsoft and Nvidia, among others; however, reports said Apple did not take part despite having been involved in the talks.
It comes as a frenzy of excitement continues around generative AI, which was first sparked by the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 and has since seen all the major tech players enter the space in some form as many identified the technology as the next big innovation in the sector.
OpenAI said the new funding will allow it to “double down on our leadership in frontier AI research”, as well as increase its compute capacity and continue building new tools to help users solve problems.
“We aim to make advanced intelligence a widely accessible resource,” the company said in a blog post.
“We’re grateful to our investors for their trust in us, and we look forward to working with our partners, developers, and the broader community to shape an AI-powered ecosystem and future that benefits everyone.
“By collaborating with key partners, including the US and allied governments, we can unlock this technology’s full potential.”
Chief executive Sam Altman is said to be restructuring the company away from the non-profit entity it was founded as, which has led to criticism from some quarters – including staff who have left the business – with some citing concerns that the move to a for-profit model could come at the expense of safety.
Mr Musk, the head of rival start-up xAI, but who was also a co-founder of OpenAI, has accused the company of abandoning its founding mission of being an open-source firm developing AI for the benefit of humanity.
The company has also been at the centre of corporate drama over the last year, with a number of key executives and other staff leaving since Mr Altman was briefly ousted as chief executive last November.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel