"OpenAI Valued at $500 Billion, Soaring in Just a Few Months"

Reported by Bloomberg News

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. Photo by Reuters Yonhap News

OpenAI, the developer behind the conversational artificial intelligence (AI) agent ChatGPT, has reportedly been valued at 500 billion dollars (approximately 700 trillion won).

According to Bloomberg News on October 2, OpenAI recently sold 6.6 billion dollars worth of shares in a secondary sale to support employee stock sales. The actual transaction volume was below the initially allowed cap of 10 billion dollars.

OpenAI’s valuation has soared to 500 billion dollars, an increase of 200 billion dollars from just a few months ago when it was valued at 300 billion dollars in a deal led by SoftBank earlier this year. This valuation now surpasses that of SpaceX, which is valued at 400 billion dollars. SpaceX is a space startup led by CEO Elon Musk.

Participants in the investment round included Thrive Capital, SoftBank Group, Dragoneer Investment Group, Abu Dhabi’s MGX, and T. Rowe Price.

Bloomberg News pointed to the AI technology investment boom as the main driver behind the surge in OpenAI’s valuation. Along with companies like Nvidia, OpenAI is leading the construction of data centers and the development of AI services. Investments in these areas are expected to reach trillions of dollars. Despite operating at a loss, OpenAI has signed large-scale contracts with companies such as Oracle and SK Hynix, helping to accelerate the spread of AI infrastructure.

The secondary deal is said to provide an incentive for employees to remain at OpenAI. Recently, as competition for AI talent intensifies in Silicon Valley, led by companies like Meta, there have been reports that OpenAI employees are also being aggressively recruited by competitors.

Meanwhile, OpenAI is reported to have generated 4.3 billion dollars in revenue in the first half of this year, an increase of about 16% compared to its annual revenue in 2024. The company expects to achieve both its annual revenue target of 13 billion dollars and its cash burn target of 8.5 billion dollars this year.