OpenAI is in advanced negotiations to secure approximately $50 billion in fresh capital from sovereign wealth funds controlled by Middle Eastern governments. According to sources speaking to CNBC, CEO Sam Altman has traveled to the United Arab Emirates to participate in the investment discussions. The funding round is expected to be finalized within the first quarter of 2026, though the final amount may shift as formal agreements are not yet complete.
This move follows a period of explosive growth for OpenAI since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022. The company completed a record-setting $40 billion investment round last year, led by SoftBank with participation from Microsoft, Coatue, Altimeter, and Thrive. More recently, a $6.6 billion share sale in October pushed OpenAI's total valuation to $500 billion.
In a parallel and landmark development, OpenAI has announced a massive infrastructure partnership with NVIDIA. The two companies revealed a deal where NVIDIA will provide at least 10 gigawatts of its computing systems to power OpenAI's next-generation AI infrastructure. To facilitate this, including the construction of data centers and securing power capacity, NVIDIA plans to invest up to $100 billion into OpenAI as the new systems are deployed.
The first phase of this infrastructure is slated to begin operation in the second half of 2026 using NVIDIA's Vera Rubin platform. OpenAI will treat NVIDIA as its primary partner for computing and networking, aligning their software and hardware plans to build what OpenAI calls its "AI factory."
"NVIDIA and OpenAI have pushed each other for a decade, from the first DGX supercomputer to the breakthrough of ChatGPT," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "This investment and infrastructure partnership mark the next leap forward — deploying 10 gigawatts to power the next era of intelligence."
Sam Altman emphasized the foundational role of compute, stating, "Compute infrastructure will be the basis for the economy of the future, and we will utilize what we’re building with NVIDIA to both create new AI breakthroughs and empower people and businesses with them at scale." The partnership is central to OpenAI's goal of developing artificial general intelligence.
