OpenAI is turning AI into a nuclear race that ordinary people can't afford to play.

Author: Nancy, PANews

Last night, the air in Silicon Valley smelled of burning money.

With $110 billion in funding and a post-money valuation of $840 billion, OpenAI's bombshell has not only raised the bar for private tech companies but also ushered in an extremely brutal "folded space" for the global AI race.

This is no longer a romantic story about technological entrepreneurship, but a game concerning the fate of the nation, computing power hegemony, and the direction of civilization.

Hundreds of billions of dollars have been poured into AI, making OpenAI the most expensive experiment.

In the history of technology, OpenAI has set a record for the largest funding round.

On February 27, OpenAI announced that it had successfully raised $110 billion in a new round of funding at a valuation of $730 billion, directly pushing its post-money valuation to $840 billion. Compared to the $40 billion funding round in the same period last year, the size of this round of funding for OpenAI has increased several times, setting a record for the largest funding round for a private technology company. Capital's bets on it have shifted from "betting on the future" to "locking in the future in advance."

What does $110 billion mean?

This figure exceeds the entire annual GDP of medium-sized countries such as Kenya, Venezuela, Luxembourg, and Panama. Even Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, has an annual GDP of approximately $1 trillion. OpenAI's single funding round is equivalent to about one-tenth of Saudi Arabia's annual output.

This amount is roughly equivalent to Nvidia's entire annual revenue, close to half of SpaceX's current valuation, and the sum of the funding raised by internet giants such as Uber, Didi, Alibaba, ByteDance, Tencent, and Meituan during the golden age of the internet.

In the AI ​​landscape, a single funding round of $110 billion was undoubtedly a watershed moment, changing the rules of the game for fundraising across the entire industry overnight. In 2025, total funding for AI startups surpassed $200 billion, setting a new record, and OpenAI took more than half of that in just one night.

Such a scale of financing has intensified the arms race in the AI ​​field. Leading competitors must follow suit with even larger-scale financing, or they will gradually fall behind in the competition for computing power, models, and talent. However, the increased financing scale also brings higher valuation pressure and realization requirements. When a large amount of capital is concentrated and absorbed, the financing window will inevitably narrow sharply, reducing the valuation negotiation space for small and medium-sized AI companies, lengthening their lifespan, and further increasing the risk of industry consolidation. This could lead to valuation bubbles, resource monopolies, and a decline in innovation vitality.

Therefore, when capital is betting on AI in such a massive amount, AI is no longer just the protagonist of the technology narrative, but has truly transformed into a main asset in the capital era, becoming a battlefield for giant capital games.

A high-stakes gamble surrounding AGI, with three giants taking over the entire arena.

The investors who issued this $110 billion check are Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank, bringing together computing power, distribution channels, and funding.

But this is not a simple financing round. Rather than a financial injection, it is more like a strategic gamble on the future of AGI, deeply intertwined with technology, computing power, and commercial interests.

Amazon was the most generous investor in this round, as it is both a major investor in OpenAI and a long-standing strategic partner.

Of the total $50 billion in commitments, the first tranche of $15 billion has been secured, with the remaining $35 billion to be available in the coming months subject to specific conditions. These conditions include achieving or meeting AGI milestones or proceeding with an IPO by the end of the year. In addition, the two parties have signed an eight-year, $100 billion expansion agreement.

This model of exchanging capital investment for future computing power needs and technological priority is similar to the logic behind OpenAI's previous cooperation with Microsoft. It is worth mentioning that OpenAI and Microsoft have a special clause that once AGI is realized, Microsoft will lose access to the relevant technologies (Note: In the new agreement signed in 2025, Microsoft's IP rights to the models and products were extended to 2032).

SoftBank Group has invested $30 billion, with the funds to be disbursed in three installments in April, July, and October of 2026. This phased arrangement is interpreted as a form of risk hedging. SoftBank's role in this funding round goes beyond simply providing capital. Market sources indicate that OpenAI is expected to raise approximately $10 billion from investors, including sovereign wealth funds and investment institutions, before March, potentially pushing its overall valuation to $850 billion. These potential investors are likely to enter through SoftBank.

SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son has been betting heavily on AI in recent years, publicly declaring that "the AI ​​revolution is the most exciting and dynamic cutting-edge trend of the future." In late 2024, Son visited Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, where he pledged $100 billion in investment in the US.

Last year, SoftBank officially announced its participation in "Stargate," a $500 billion AI infrastructure investment project in the US, and became its chairman. SoftBank is responsible for financial matters, while OpenAI is responsible for operations. Furthermore, to support OpenAI, Masayoshi Son even sold off his entire Nvidia stock last year, using the proceeds to further invest in OpenAI, making him one of OpenAI's largest external investors.

Nvidia, which had been announcing its investment for a long time, has now poured in $30 billion, replacing the $100 billion long-term cooperation commitment agreed upon by the two parties last year. This has also allowed OpenAI to monopolize Nvidia's production capacity ahead of schedule, creating an exclusive "internal circulation system." Any competitor outside the industry will have to wait in line to buy graphics cards until 2030.

This cyclical model is seen as a typical form of supplier financing, essentially a way for tech giants to secure long-term business partnerships through capital investment. In this AI race, capital is no longer just a financial tool, but a bargaining chip for securing computing resources and gaining a dominant voice in the market.

The race between technology and capital will lead to consideration of an IPO at the appropriate time.

Behind the massive injection of capital is not only a collective bet on the AGI track, but also an affirmation of OpenAI's business growth.

According to official disclosures, OpenAI's flagship product ChatGPT currently boasts over 900 million weekly active users, compared to around 200 million just 18 months ago; the number of individual subscribers has surpassed 50 million, setting a new record, with a paid penetration rate exceeding 5%; and there are over 9 million paying commercial users, including numerous enterprises and government agencies using ChatGPT or building products based on the OpenAI API.

However, behind this rapid growth lies ever-increasing cash consumption. OpenAI's revenue in 2025 was approximately $13 billion, with cash outflows of $8 billion, meaning that for every $1 earned, approximately $0.62 of cash was burned through. According to The Information, internal projections disclosed by OpenAI to investors indicate that cumulative cash burn will reach $115 billion by the end of 2029, and is not expected to turn positive until 2030. Meanwhile, OpenAI recently disclosed plans to invest a total of approximately $600 billion in computing power by 2030.

This means that if OpenAI cannot achieve substantial profits in the short term, this astonishing "cash burn rate" will force it to continuously rely on financial injections to stay afloat.

But more importantly, OpenAI's once impregnable moat is loosening.

According to data from mobile data analytics company Apptopia, ChatGPT's market share has declined from 69.1% in January 2025 to 45.3% in 2026. During the same period, Google's Gemini chatbot's market share rose from 14.7% to 25.2%, while Musk's Grok rose to 15.2%, compared to only 1.6% in the same period last year.

With profitability challenges and fierce competition looming, an IPO may become OpenAI's "lifeline."

OpenAI's IPO timeline may be approaching. According to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter, OpenAI is paving the way for a Q4 2026 listing and has already contacted Wall Street investment banks, recruiting a chief accounting officer and a head of investor relations. Its founder, Sam Altman, recently disclosed that they will consider an IPO at the appropriate time. If it goes public, this will be one of the most important IPOs in the tech industry in 2026.

This means that Sam Altman is blindfolded, racing across the narrow bridge of an IPO. It's not just a race against technology, but a life-or-death struggle against the patience of investors.

The IPO at the end of the year might mark the peak of this AI bubble, or it might be the true beginning of the AGI era. But until then, everyone is holding their breath at this most expensive gamble, waiting for the cards to be revealed.