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tencent news "first line"

contributing author｜ji zhenyu

editor｜liu peng

on october 3, the artificial intelligence startup openai completed a new round of financing of us$6.6 billion, with a post-money valuation of us$157 billion, an increase of nearly us$86 billion compared with its valuation of approximately us$86 billion at the end of last year when employees sold existing shares. double.

this round of financing was led by venture capital firm thrive capital, which invested $1.25 billion in openai. microsoft, a long-time backer of openai, has invested no more than $1 billion. new investors include masayoshi son’s softbank group, which invested about $500 million, and ai chip giant nvidia, which invested about $100 million. apple, which had previously participated in this round of financing negotiations, ultimately did not invest.

other investors participating in this round include silicon valley vc khosla ventures, altimeter capital, fidelity management and research company, and mgx, a uae state-backed company established this year that focuses on invest in artificial intelligence companies.

investors need to invest at least us$250 million to have access to openai's financial-related documents. it is also worth noting that this round of financing has a new agreement clause. if openai fails to complete the planned conversion from a non-profit to a for-profit company, investors in this round of financing will have the right to withdraw their capital.

that shift, along with philosophical discord among the company’s founding team members and senior executives, sparked tensions within openai. the main disagreement between them is that some people believe that money and fame have diverted openai from its original mission of developing ai for the public good, while others believe that selling products and making profits is to fund more research and bring ai to the masses to benefit society. the recent wave of executive departures within openai also reflects the increasingly fierce disagreements within the company.

for now, openai remains a non-profit charity with a for-profit arm through which investors can receive a stake in future profits.

openai is a leading company in the field of generative artificial intelligence. its artificial intelligence chat application chatgpt has 250 million weekly active users and 11 million paid subscribers. about 1 million business customers pay to use its technology.

however, openai still faces fierce competition from the industry, such as social giant meta and search giant google, as well as startups like anthropic. the large models and related applications they have released have the ability to catch up with or even surpass openai's products. therefore, it is particularly important for openai to raise significant funds to invest in research and development and stay ahead of the curve.