Apple Reportedly Exits OpenAI’s $6.5 Billion Funding Round

Apple has reportedly stepped back from talks to invest in a massive OpenAI funding round.

That round is expected to raise up to $6.5 billion, but Apple recently backed away from discussions to take part, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Friday (Sept. 27), citing sources close to the matter.

Those sources say Microsoft and Nvidia are also in discussions to take part in the round, with the former company expected to invest $1 billion in the artificial intelligence (AI) startup, on top of the $13 billion it has already invested.

The report noted that Apple’s participation would have marked a rare investment by the company in another major tech firm.

As PYMNTS wrote last week, OpenAI’s fundraising plan — which would reportedly value the company at $150 billion — could usher in a new era for AI commercialization, potentially reshaping entire industries and leading to a pitched battle for market dominance.

The updated valuation, which doesn’t include the money being raised, marks a jump from the $86 billion figure established during OpenAI’s tender offer earlier in the year. If successful, this financing round would seal OpenAI’s status as one of the world’s most valuable startups and bring about a seismic shift in the AI sector.

“We’re seeing a consolidation of capital around clear winners in the general LLM [large language model] space — OpenAI, Perplexity, Mistral, LLaMA,” Hannah Chelkowski, co-founder and general partner at Blank Ventures, told PYMNTS. “This funding round further cements OpenAI’s position as a leader in this space.”

The commercial implications could be wide ranging, with businesses in a number of different industries scrambling to add advanced AI capabilities to their operations.

“Companies successfully leveraging OpenAI’s technology may gain substantial competitive advantages, potentially disrupting traditional business models and reshaping entire markets,” PYMNTS wrote. “Observers say the AI fundraising effort could trigger a surge in AI-powered products and services across a range of sectors.”

Retailers could deploy more sophisticated chatbots and personalized shopping experiences, financial institutions could improve fraud detection and algorithmic trading, and healthcare providers might employ AI for more accurate diagnostics and treatment plans. And competition among AI infrastructure firms is likely to heat up.

“OpenAI sits within a unique category in the AI industry — the category of companies building the basic infrastructure of AI,” Asaf Charnilas, an investor at Team8, told PYMNTS, suggesting that other players in this space could need to secure larger funding rounds to keep up.

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