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Mr. Sparkle

(3,716 posts)
Fri Feb 27, 2026, 12:55 PM Feb 27

OpenAI Raises $110 Billion Led by Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank, Extending A.I. Boom

Source: NY Times

OpenAI said on Friday that it had raised $110 billion from investors to pay for its continued growth and to fuel the development of artificial intelligence, valuing the company at $730 billion. Amazon, a new investor in OpenAI, is pouring $50 billion into the artificial intelligence start-up. The Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and the chipmaker Nvidia, which have previously invested in OpenAI, each invested $30 billion in the new funding round, OpenAI said.

With the deal, OpenAI, which was previously valued at $500 billion, cements its place as one of the most valuable private companies in the world alongside the rocket company SpaceX and ByteDance, the maker of TikTok. The new funding round also illustrates the circular deal making at the center of the A.I. boom. Companies like Nvidia, Amazon and Microsoft have invested huge sums in OpenAI, Anthropic and others. In exchange, those young companies purchase computing power from those same investors.

OpenAI isn’t done raising money. Sam Altman, the company’s chief executive, has been in discussions with various sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East about further investments. MGX, a United Arab Emirates investment firm, has previously invested in the company.

More than six years after its founders transformed their A.I. lab into a commercial company, OpenAI is still unprofitable and needs immense amounts of capital to pay for computing power, A.I. talent and other needs. The company pulled in revenues of $13 billion in 2025, but expects to spend $115 billion over the next four years.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/business/openai-funding.html

7 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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OpenAI Raises $110 Billion Led by Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank, Extending A.I. Boom (Original Post) Mr. Sparkle Feb 27 OP
Nothing new here angrychair Feb 27 #1
This message was self-deleted by its author jfz9580m Feb 27 #2
Don't mistake this for profits - AI is completely unprofitable FakeNoose Feb 27 #3
New tulip schemes annually. gAI Obsessed Feb 27 #4
Welcome to DU LetMyPeopleVote Feb 28 #7
Is it too big to fail yet? hunter Feb 27 #5
These types of circular, incestuous deals were the harbinger of doom in the dot com era. pat_k Feb 27 #6

angrychair

(12,334 posts)
1. Nothing new here
Fri Feb 27, 2026, 01:17 PM
Feb 27

This is just big AI connected companies passing around the same bucket of money like a pocket comb on picture day.

There is still no actual growth. No actual revenue. No actual, realistic, plan to be profitable.
This is theater to keep OpenAI afloat.
Microsoft has 50% stake in OpenAI and the financial stress on MS is starting to show

Eventually, Microsoft and these other companies will start to run into issues that they are not acting in the best financial interests of their stockholders.

Response to Mr. Sparkle (Original post)

FakeNoose

(41,810 posts)
3. Don't mistake this for profits - AI is completely unprofitable
Fri Feb 27, 2026, 02:12 PM
Feb 27

They can't figure out how to make money off of AI, but they keep throwing more and more investment into it.

hunter

(40,738 posts)
5. Is it too big to fail yet?
Fri Feb 27, 2026, 03:01 PM
Feb 27

It's fascinating to watch these guys accelerate when all the signs say they are on a dead end street.

Unfortunately for everyone, it all ends with Big Brother grabbing up all the infrastructure they've built for pennies on the dollar.

Maybe that was the plan from the beginning.

pat_k

(13,453 posts)
6. These types of circular, incestuous deals were the harbinger of doom in the dot com era.
Fri Feb 27, 2026, 03:29 PM
Feb 27

Take with whatever grains of salt you apply to all AI answers, but here is how Gemini summarizes:


Recent, in-depth reports from late 2025 and early 2026 indicate that the AI sector is heavily relying on circular financing—often called "AI incestuous deals"—where tech giants, chip manufacturers, and AI startups invest in each other and purchase each other's products, creating a self-reinforcing, potentially precarious, financial loop. Critics and market analysts worry this pattern mimics the 1999–2000 dot-com bubble, where companies inflated revenues by buying services from one another, setting the stage for a potential collapse.


Great illustration at this link:
https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2025/10/14/circular-ai-deals-reminiscent-of-disastrous-dot-com-vendor-financing-of-the-1990s/

I for one moved money I had in a standard Vanguard S&P index to an ETF that excludes the "Magnificent 7" (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla):
Defiance Large Cap ex-Mag 7 ETF
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