OpenAI's flagship artificial intelligence platform, ChatGPT, has achieved a monumental milestone, reaching 900 million weekly active users as of February 2026. This figure represents a staggering increase of 100 million users since October 2025 and positions the conversational AI tool firmly on the path to the elusive one-billion-user benchmark. The company's internal data indicates that January and February 2026 are on track to be the largest months for new user sign-ups in its history.
Concurrently, OpenAI revealed a historic $110 billion private funding round at a pre-money valuation of $730 billion, one of the largest private funding rounds in corporate history. The funding consortium includes a $50 billion anchor investment from Amazon, with Nvidia and SoftBank each contributing $30 billion. The round remains open, with expectations for additional strategic investors to participate.
This colossal capital infusion is earmarked for accelerating development in key areas: securing next-generation AI chips and data center capacity, pioneering new model architectures, investing heavily in AI safety research, and improving global accessibility. The investment solidifies strategic partnerships, with Amazon's involvement suggesting deeper AWS integration and Nvidia's ensuring priority access to its latest AI semiconductors.
OpenAI now reports having 50 million paying subscribers across its ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Enterprise tiers, demonstrating significant commercial viability. The platform's explosive growth is attributed to tangible product improvements, including faster response times, higher reliability, stronger safety protocols, and more consistent performance, transitioning ChatGPT from a novel curiosity to an essential digital utility.
The dual announcements have immediate repercussions across the global technology sector, raising concerns about market consolidation. Competitors are responding by focusing on niche verticals, increasing investment in open-source models, and facing potential regulatory scrutiny from antitrust authorities. Experts note the profound engineering challenge of managing the computational and environmental costs of serving nearly a billion users weekly while navigating a complex global regulatory environment.
