OpenAI’s Billion Users, US$852bn Valuation and Stargate

One in every eight people who use the internet now uses ChatGPT every week. In August 2026, OpenAI's products passed one billion weekly active users. For the first time, business customers brought in more money than individual consumers. In October, the company reported that more than 1.2 billion people used ChatGPT every week.

The money behind the company is just as large. In March, OpenAI completed a US$122bn funding round, giving it a value of US$852bn after the investment. Amazon, NVIDIA and SoftBank led the round. Reports say OpenAI is also in talks at a possible value of around US$1.4tn.

Business leaders need to ask how much of this value comes from money the company earns today, and how much depends on future spending on computing power. Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO, previously wrote on his blog: “Our vision is simple: we want to create a factory that can produce a gigawatt of new AI infrastructure every week.”

Most of our revenue now comes from business customers.

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar (via CNBC)

How did it grow so quickly?

OpenAI began in San Francisco in December 2015 as a research lab.

It is now called OpenAI Group PBC and is a public benefit corporation. Since October 2025, the OpenAI Foundation has owned 26% of the company. Microsoft, its first major financial backer, has invested US$13bn since 2019 and owns about 27%.

By March 2026, OpenAI had more than 50 million paying subscribers and was earning about US$2bn each month.

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told investors in August that business customers were bringing in more money than individual consumers. OpenAI now has more than two million business customers. According to CNBC, she said: “The majority of our revenue is now enterprise.”

OpenAI in numbers

• Value: US$852bn after a US$122bn funding round completed in March 2026.

• Users: One billion weekly active users in August 2026, up from 900 million in February.

• Revenue: Annual revenue based on its September 2026 pace was close to US$50bn, according to the Financial Times.

• Business customers: More than two million in August 2026.

• Subscribers: More than 50 million paying subscribers in March 2026.

What drives its growth?

Banks are among the main users. Morgan Stanley reports that more than 98% of its financial adviser teams use an internal assistant built with OpenAI models. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has introduced ChatGPT Enterprise to about 50,000 employees.

Developers are another major source of growth. OpenAI's APIs handle more than 15 billion tokens, or pieces of text, each minute. Codex, its tool for helping people write code, had more than two million weekly users in March 2026.

This demand helps explain why OpenAI has spent the past two years securing computing power on a scale that no software company had tried before.

The US government also plays a part. OpenAI for Government began in June 2025 with a pilot programme worth up to US$200m for the Department of Defense's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO). It brought existing work with NASA, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Treasury and the Air Force Research Laboratory into one programme.

Our vision is simple: we want to create a factory that can produce a gigawatt of new AI infrastructure every week.

Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO

The finances

OpenAI's infrastructure deals show how it is building relationships across the AI supply chain. NVIDIA has agreed to invest up to US$100bn and provide at least 10GW of computing systems. AMD will supply 6GW of its Instinct graphics processing units (GPUs). This will begin with 1GW of MI450 systems in the second half of 2026.

Amazon Web Services signed a US$38bn agreement with OpenAI in November 2025. Oracle and SoftBank are partners in Stargate, a joint venture to build AI infrastructure with an estimated price tag of US$500bn. A deal with Microsoft in May 2026 limited Microsoft's share of OpenAI's revenue to US$38bn and allowed OpenAI to offer its services through any cloud provider.

The next step is to prove that the financial numbers make sense. The Financial Times reported in October that investor documents showed annual revenue running at close to US$50bn. This was below some earlier reports that put the figure at US$70bn.

OpenAI filed confidential paperwork for an initial public offering (IPO) in June 2026, but the listing has since been delayed. The company has about 4,500 employees and now needs to show that its business growth can keep up with the cost of computing power. The Financial Times reported that OpenAI expects to spend almost US$280bn more than it brings in by the end of 2030.

The company is losing money and expects its costs to grow much faster than its income. According to a Financial Times report, OpenAI expects revenue to increase tenfold over the same period, from US$36bn this year to US$350bn in 2030.

Main technology partners

• Microsoft: Microsoft has invested US$13bn since 2019 and owns about 27% of OpenAI. A deal made in May 2026 limits Microsoft's share of OpenAI's revenue to US$38bn. It also makes Microsoft's licence to use OpenAI's intellectual property non-exclusive until 2032 and allows OpenAI to sell its services through any cloud provider, while Azure keeps priority.
• NVIDIA: NVIDIA has agreed to invest up to US$100bn and supply at least 10GW of computing systems. It also helped lead OpenAI's March 2026 funding round. In August 2026, a revised agreement included leasing an 8GW data centre in Pike County, Ohio.
• AMD: A multi-year agreement will provide OpenAI with 6GW of Instinct GPUs, starting with 1GW of MI450 systems in the second half of 2026. OpenAI holds warrants that could let it buy up to 160 million AMD shares, equal to about 10% of the chipmaker.
• Oracle and SoftBank: Both are partners in Stargate, a joint venture to build AI infrastructure that launched in January 2025 and has an estimated price tag of US$500bn. Five new Stargate data centres announced in 2025 are expected to add 7GW of computing capacity across the United States.
• Amazon Web Services: A multi-year agreement worth US$38bn was signed in November 2025. It gives OpenAI access to hundreds of thousands of NVIDIA chips through AWS, with all the planned computing capacity expected to be available before the end of 2026. Amazon also helped lead OpenAI's March funding round.