OpenAI reportedly seeks up to $30 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation before its IPO

OpenAI is working on a private funding round of up to $30 billion at a $1.25 trillion pre-money valuation, CNBC reported, citing sources. TechCrunch, which summarised the report, says the round is led by Coatue and investors in the United Arab Emirates. Terms are still being negotiated and could change. OpenAI declined to comment.

A valuation above $1 trillion would make OpenAI the most valuable private company ever. It would also show that a very small number of companies can now raise money on a scale once reserved for public markets, and spend it on the compute that frontier AI runs on.

What has been reported

According to CNBC, as summarised by TechCrunch, the round could raise up to $30 billion. Coatue and UAE-based investors would lead it. CNBC also reports that the UAE money could come with a deal giving OpenAI more computing capacity in the UAE.

The report follows one from Bloomberg about a month earlier, which said OpenAI was trying to raise $30 billion at a $1.4 trillion valuation. Both outlets say terms are not final. The size of the round has stayed the same across the two reports. The reported valuation has come down by $150 billion.

OpenAI's last round, in March, valued it at $852 billion post-money. Going from there to $1.25 trillion pre-money would be an increase of about 47 percent in roughly seven months. If the full $30 billion is raised at that price, the post-money valuation would be about $1.28 trillion.

A private round ahead of a public listing

OpenAI filed confidential paperwork for an initial public offering in June. TechCrunch describes the new round as a way of raising another large sum privately instead of moving straight to the listing.

This matters for the IPO. A higher private valuation sets the price that public investors will be asked to match or beat. TechCrunch notes that a trillion-dollar private round would "raise the bar even higher" for OpenAI's eventual offering.

Staying private longer also changes who gets a say. In a private round, a small group of large investors negotiates terms directly with the company. Here, that group reportedly includes a single investment firm and sovereign-linked money from one country, possibly tied to compute infrastructure in that country. Wider public ownership, and the disclosure that comes with it, waits until the listing.

Anthropic is on a similar path

The same dynamic applies to OpenAI's closest rival. Anthropic raised $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation in May. Many observers saw that as its last big private round before going public, TechCrunch reports. Anthropic also filed confidential IPO paperwork in June. According to TechCrunch, rumours suggest its public S-1 filing could appear any day.

CNBC reports that Anthropic is seeking a valuation of $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion when it lists. TechCrunch says OpenAI's new private price could affect how that offering is judged, since both companies will be compared against each other.

Taken together, two AI developers have raised or are seeking well over $90 billion between them in 2026, at valuations close to or above $1 trillion. Both have filed for IPOs. Both deals depend on investors who can write cheques in the tens of billions.

Capital, compute and control

The possible UAE compute deal shows what this money is for. Training and running frontier models takes data centres, chips and power on a national scale. The funding round and the compute deal reportedly could come as one package. In that case, the investor is not only buying a stake but also hosting part of the infrastructure the models depend on.

For the rest of the industry, the gap in scale is plain. A startup building its own model competes with companies that can raise $30 billion in one round. Most companies that use AI will build on top of a few providers instead of training their own systems. Decisions about pricing, model access, safety policy and where the computing happens are made inside those few companies and their largest backers.

None of these figures are final. The round has not closed, the reported valuation has already moved once, and OpenAI has not commented.

What it means for work

As more money flows to a handful of labs, more of the AI that drafts, codes, summarises and handles customer queries comes from those same labs. Businesses automating tasks will mostly rent that capability from OpenAI, Anthropic and a few others, so their costs and terms depend on these companies' choices. Developers and smaller AI firms will mostly build on these platforms instead of competing with them at the model level. If both companies go public, workers whose jobs these tools change will get a clearer view of the businesses behind them through public filings, and some will be able to buy shares. Still open: whether the reported valuation holds, what the UAE compute deal involves, and how much influence the new investors gain over how the technology is deployed.