OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has raised $40 billion in fresh funding, nearly doubling its valuation to $300 billion, marking one of the largest capital infusions in startup history. The investment, led by SoftBank Group alongside additional investors, solidifies OpenAI’s position as a leader in artificial intelligence.
The new valuation follows OpenAI’s previous fundraising round in October 2024, which valued the company at $157 billion. On March 26, 2025, Bloomberg reported that OpenAI was finalizing the latest investment deal.
SoftBank’s Strategic Partnership with OpenAI
The funding was secured through a partnership with Japanese investment giant SoftBank Group. In a statement on Monday, OpenAI said,
“This investment enables us to push the frontiers of AI research even further. Their support will help us continue building AI systems that drive scientific discovery, enable personalized education, enhance human creativity, and pave the way toward AGI (artificial general intelligence) that benefits all of humanity.”
AGI refers to an AI system with intelligence comparable to humans. SoftBank has also expressed its ambition to achieve Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI)—an AI system surpassing human capabilities—and sees OpenAI as its most promising partner in that pursuit.
SoftBank will initially invest $10 billion, with an additional $30 billion to be injected later in the year, pending certain conditions, according to AFP.
Expanding AI Infrastructure and Competition
OpenAI plans to use the funding to scale its infrastructure, aiming to provide more powerful AI tools for its 500 million weekly ChatGPT users. This investment signals a shift in OpenAI’s strategy, which previously maintained strict control over its proprietary models. The company is now focusing on expanding accessibility and competing in the open-source AI space, where rivals such as DeepSeek (China) and Meta are gaining ground.
OpenAI’s new image-generation feature within ChatGPT has already gained immense popularity, attracting one million users within the first hour of launch. CEO Sam Altman revealed that the surge in demand even caused overheating issues in OpenAI’s graphics processing units (GPUs) due to the system’s heavy usage.
With this massive financial backing, OpenAI is poised to accelerate the development of advanced AI models and strengthen its position as a global leader in artificial intelligence.
