OpenAI is nearing another giant private funding round, according to two separate news reports published on October 22. CNBC, citing people familiar with the deal, said the ChatGPT developer is seeking as much as $30 billion, pricing the company at $1.25 trillion before the new cash. Bloomberg, also relying on unnamed people involved in the talks, reported the same headline valuation for a round of about $30 billion and said negotiations had reached their final stages. OpenAI declined to comment to both outlets.
The two accounts differ slightly on who sits at the head of the table. In CNBC's version, Emirati investors head the round together with the hedge fund Coatue. Bloomberg described Coatue as in talks to co-lead and said several UAE investment funds, as well as BlackRock, have also been in discussions. Earlier this month Bloomberg had named Abu Dhabi's MGX among the Gulf investors weighing a combined commitment of as much as $10 billion.
The valuation has moved during the talks. Bloomberg reported that the figure under discussion dropped by $150 billion from the $1.4 trillion it had described in early October. The change comes during a rough week for technology stocks, which fell after mixed quarterly results from Meta and Tesla revived investor worries about the scale of AI spending. Both outlets stressed that terms could still change. CNBC said OpenAI told investors on Thursday it hopes to have signatures by the end of next week and that the final size has not been settled.
CNBC framed the money as an opportunistic bridge ahead of a possible initial public offering rather than a substitute for one. OpenAI filed confidentially with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in June. Its finance chief, Sarah Friar, told staff in August that the company would be public in 2027, while chief executive Sam Altman said in September that listing at that moment would be ill-advised. One person told CNBC that OpenAI is also negotiating a commercial arrangement to secure more computing capacity from the UAE alongside the investment.
The size of the numbers reflects how capital-hungry frontier AI has become. OpenAI's previous round, closed in March, raised $122 billion at an $852 billion valuation including the new money. The company told investors in February that it expects total compute spending of roughly $600 billion through 2030, according to CNBC. A completed deal at more than $1 trillion would, as TechCrunch noted, put OpenAI above any private company valuation on record.
The timing also invites comparison with Anthropic, OpenAI's closest rival, which filed confidentially for its own listing in June. CNBC reported that Anthropic hopes to be valued somewhere from $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion when it lists, having pulled in $65 billion in May at a valuation of $965 billion, and Bloomberg said the listing is expected in November.
For now the story rests on anonymous sourcing from two independent newsrooms rather than any statement from OpenAI or the investors named. Coatue did not immediately respond to Bloomberg's request for comment. Until signed terms are announced, the round's final size, lead investors and any accompanying compute deal with the UAE should be treated as reported but unconfirmed.