OpenAI, an artificial intelligence startup with more than 1 million paid users, is in talks with investors to raise $6.5 billion in funding, which would boost its valuation to $150 billion.
Bloomberg has reported, using sources familiar with the matter, that the new valuation does not include funds being raised. OpenAI also hopes to secure an additional $5 billion in revolving credit lines from banks, a flexible line of credit that allows the company to draw down, repay and borrow funds again as needed.
The $150 billion valuation is significantly higher than the $86 billion the company was valued at when it raised capital in February.
According to previous reports by Zombit, investment company Thrive Capital will lead this round of financing and will invest US$1 billion. Technology giants such as Huida and Apple are also among the investors interested in supporting this AI startup.
At the same time, Microsoft, which has always supported OpenAI, is also expected to participate in this investment. Microsoft has invested $13 billion in OpenAI since 2019 and owns 49% of the company. The exact amount of investment from Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft has not yet been announced.
On the other hand, according to previous reports by The Information, OpenAI plans to release its new inference AI model "Strawberry" within the next two weeks. According to reports, "Strawberry" is an independent AI product. The biggest difference from general conversational artificial intelligence is that it has the ability to "think" and will think for 10 to 20 seconds before answering questions, thereby providing a more accurate response. Reports indicate that the initial version can only receive and generate text, not images.
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