Some of the biggest players in tech and artificial intelligence may be betting on OpenAI — including fellow AI darling Nvidia — according to new reports.
The AI startup is in talks for a new funding round led by Thrive Capital that could value the company at more than $100 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Thrive Capital is putting up $1 billion for the company, and others want in, according to the report.
Those looking to join the next funding round could include Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia, Bloomberg reported, citing sources familiar with the discussions.
Apple, Microsoft, and OpenAI spokespersons did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, and a spokesperson for Nvidia declined to comment.
Though it’s a startup with an unconventional structure — a nonprofit partnered with a capped profit arm — OpenAI has already proven to be the leader in AI among a growing field of formidable competitors looking to capitalize on the technology.
That Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia — publicly traded companies that sit in the small trillion-dollar market cap club — also may want to support OpenAI’s latest funding round, according to reports, only reiterates the startup’s position as one of the most valuable companies in the world.
Their bets on OpenAI, however, may not come as a complete surprise.
Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion in a partnership with the startup, despite recently identifying OpenAI as a competitor.
Apple also announced an OpenAI partnership in June that would integrate ChatGPT into the company’s operating systems if users opted in.
For Nvidia — a company started in 1993 that has recently seen a huge surge in hype because its chips power AI — the company’s reported interest in OpenAI funding tracks with its ongoing plans to invest in artificial intelligence ventures.
In 2023, the chipmaker’s venture capital arm, NVentures, invested in nearly three dozen AI-centered startups, a report from Dealogic, a data analysis firm, showed.
Nvidia has said that the NVentures move is part of an initiative to feed an AI “ecosystem” that would be reliant on the company’s technologies.
“Nvidia’s corporate investments arm focuses on strategic collaborations,” Nvidia said in a December blog post. “These partnerships stimulate joint innovation, enhance the Nvidia platform, and expand the ecosystem.”
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