OpenAI, the company behind the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT, is reportedly in talks with several investors, including Reliance Industries, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), and United Arab Emirates’ MGX, to secure $40 billion in funding. The funding round, which was initially announced in late March, values the company at $300 billion post-money. The investors are expected to contribute “at least hundreds of millions of dollars” each to the fundraise.
The funding will be used to fuel OpenAI’s model development and infrastructure plan, known as “Stargate”. The plan aims to sharpen the company’s frontiers of AI research and scale its compute infrastructure. OpenAI has been expanding its presence in various regions, including India, where it has launched data residency to allow users to store data locally. This move is expected to help Indian users comply with data sovereignty rules while using OpenAI products.
Prior to the funding talks, OpenAI was reportedly in discussions with Reliance Industries to partner on new AI businesses. The partnership was expected to involve the distribution or sale of OpenAI’s AI offerings, including ChatGPT, through Reliance’s telecom arm Jio. However, the deal may involve Microsoft, which has exclusive rights to resell OpenAI models to businesses through an API.
OpenAI has also been launching new products and features, including its AI agent “Operator”, which can perform several tasks for users, such as interacting with webpages. The company has also rolled out ChatGPT Enterprise and ChatGPT Edu, which are designed for businesses and educational institutions, respectively.
Despite the positive developments, ChatGPT experienced a global outage recently, with thousands of users, including those in India, unable to access the service. The company has not commented on the outage, but it is expected to provide an update soon. Overall, OpenAI’s funding talks and expansion plans suggest that the company is poised for significant growth and development in the AI space.