OpenAI has raised $6.6 billion in new funding, bringing its total valuation to the massive tune of $157 billion.
The new funding round was led by Thrive Capital but also includes Nvidia, Microsoft, Fidelity, SoftBank, Khosla Ventures, Altimeter Capital, United Arab Emirates-based MGX and Tiger Global.
“We are making progress on our mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity,” the company said in a statement. “Every week, over 250 million people around the world use ChatGPT to enhance their work, creativity, and learning. Across industries, businesses are improving productivity and operations, and developers are leveraging our platform to create a new generation of applications. And we’re only getting started.”
The statement continued, “The new funding will allow us to double down on our leadership in frontier AI research, increase compute capacity, and continue building tools that help people solve hard problems.”
It was just reported on Monday that SoftBank alone was investing $500 million into the artificial intelligence company. It marked their first investment into the company.
“We aim to make advanced intelligence a widely accessible resource,” the statement said. “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 U.S. and allied governments, we can unlock this technology’s full potential.”
OpenAI has been at the center of a few controversies this year despite locking down all this funding. Back in May, they had to remove their ChatGPT voice “Sky” for sounding too similar to Scarlett Johansson’s voice. The company denied there was a deliberate imitation to the actress – or an intended nod to her AI character in 2013’s “Her” – but agreed to pause the specific voice anyway.
“It’s not too late for these companies to slow down and put processes in place to ensure that the products that are being built are built transparently, ethically and responsibly,” Johansson’s agent Bryan Lourd said at the time.
Despite all that, the company is showing no signs of slowing down. Just last month it was reported that 200 million people use its AI-chatbot ChatGPT each month.
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