OpenAI raises £5 billion in largest ever funding round

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.