Nvidia and Apple have discussed Joining OpenAI’s Latest Funding Round
It's being reported today that Nvidia Corp., the world’s biggest chipmaker, has discussed joining a funding round for OpenAI that would value the artificial intelligence startup at more than $100 billion.
Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have also been in talks about participating in the financing, according to sources close to the matter. The round would be led by Thrive Capital, which is investing about $1 billion, Bloomberg reported earlier this week.
If the discussions move forward, it would mean the three most valuable tech companies are all backing OpenAI, maker of the groundbreaking ChatGPT chatbot. Microsoft was already OpenAI’s biggest funder, having invested roughly $13 billion.
Apple has existing ties with OpenAI as well. The iPhone maker is adding ChatGPT to its new suite of AI features, called Apple Intelligence. The company also was slated to take a board observer seat at OpenAI — alongside Microsoft — but those plans were dropped in July.
Nvidia, meanwhile, supplies the critical infrastructure needed to develop and run AI tools like ChatGPT. It’s the biggest maker of so-called AI accelerators, sales of which have soared over the past two years.
In Nvidia’s latest quarterly report, released on Wednesday, revenue more than doubled to $30 billion. It predicted even bigger sales in the current quarter, topping the average analysts estimates." Actually, Nvidia reported record 122% growth year-over-year quarterly revenue and record quarterly Data Center revenue of $26.3 billion, up 154% from a year ago.
The Wall Street Journal previously reported on the discussions with Apple. For more, read the full Bloomberg report.
Disclosure: The owner of Patently Apple owns stock in Nvidia.