Recently, the company completed a transaction that allowed employees to sell shares at a company valuation of $500 billion, surpassing SpaceX to become the world's most valuable startup. This significant increase in valuation reflects strong market confidence in OpenAI's future development.
It is reported that current and former employees of OpenAI sold shares worth approximately $6.6 billion, with buyers including well-known investment institutions such as Thrive Capital, SoftBank Group, Dragoneer Investment Group, and T. Rowe Price. Notably, OpenAI had previously received a valuation of $300 billion in a funding round at the end of March this year, and this transaction has raised its valuation to $500 billion, highlighting its leading position in the industry.
In the increasingly competitive field of artificial intelligence, OpenAI faces pressure from major companies, especially tech giants like Meta, which are actively recruiting talent from OpenAI, offering salaries as high as nine figures. To retain core employees, OpenAI hopes to provide liquidity that matches the company's growth through this share sale.
Meanwhile, OpenAI's financial situation has not yet turned profitable, but the company continues to advance the construction of artificial intelligence infrastructure by establishing strategic partnerships with industry giants such as Oracle and SK Hynix. Recently, OpenAI reached a strategic cooperation agreement with NVIDIA, and the two will jointly deploy at least 10 GW of NVIDIA systems. NVIDIA has also committed to investing up to $100 billion in OpenAI.
Although OpenAI has achieved remarkable success in the short term, it still needs to face challenges from competitors such as Google and Anthropic in the future. To respond to market changes, OpenAI has recently launched multiple new technology products, striving to maintain a competitive edge. The recently released Sora2 video generation model has been called the "GPT-3.5 moment" in entering the video field by Altman, showing its determination in technological innovation.
OpenAI, driven by massive market demand and innovation capabilities, is continuously moving towards higher goals. In the future, as artificial intelligence technology continues to advance, OpenAI will play an even more important role in the industry.
