OpenAI Raised Another 11 Billion Dollars at a Valuation of 1,250 Billion, and It Wanted 30: the AI Market Is Braking for the First Time

OpenAI has raised another 11 billion dollars in a new funding round, valuing the company at 1,250 billion dollars. The information was reported by Bloomberg, citing sources close to the deal. The round isn't closed yet and is expected to wrap up in the coming weeks, with a total of around 20 billion dollars.

The figure sounds huge, until you compare it with the plan. At the end of September there was talk of OpenAI seeking 30 billion dollars in this round. If it ends at 20, that's a third less than the company wanted to raise. In the world of artificial intelligence, where every piece of news is sold as a record, this is the first number that looks like braking.

The braking isn't only at OpenAI. A few hours earlier Bloomberg reported that potential buyers of shares in Anthropic, its biggest competitor preparing for a listing, are looking at a valuation from as low as 1,100 billion dollars. Just a month ago there was talk of 2,000 billion. In four weeks almost 900 billion dollars vanished from the valuation - on paper, but paper is exactly what these companies use to buy chips and data centres.

OpenAI had announced a listing this year, then postponed it - it's now expected sometime in 2027. Meanwhile, after the Democrats' convincing win in the US congressional elections and voters' increasingly sour mood towards data centres, the market has begun to wonder whether regulation will arrive faster than profit. When a company valued at more than a thousand billion raises less than it asked for, is that a correction or the first sign that the bubble has started to hiss?