Artificial intelligence startup OpenAI is in early discussions for a funding round that could value it at a whopping $340 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal, which would more than double its valuation amid competitive threats from up-and-coming Chinese AI firm DeepSeek.

Some of the funding would be used to help cover OpenAI’s $18 billion commitment to the recently announced Stargate project.

OpenAI is in early talks to raise up to $40B in a funding round that would value the ChatGPT maker at $340B, The Wall Street Journal’s Berber

Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI in talks to raise new $40 billion funding, at a valuation of $340 billion.

OpenAI is reportedly in talks to raise $40bn in a funding round led by SoftBank, taking the nine-year-old start-up to a $340bn valuation.

From IBM's solid quarterly numbers to Microsoft's weak earnings show, here's a look at some of the major developments from across the world.

The San Francisco-based company was last valued at $157 billion in October, when it secured $6.6 billion of investment. Microsoft led a previous round of financing totalling $10 billion, integrating OpenAI’s technology into its suite of Office products and significantly boosting the AI startup’s profile.

Using DeepSeek's AI models and integrating them into its hardware aligns well with Apple’s strategy and keeps the company competitive in the AI race without reinventing the wheel or moving away from its core business model.

Tech giants around the globe were rattled on Jan. 27 after Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek unveiled an impressive, low-cost artificial intelligence (AI) model, sparking widespread concerns about the scale of investment being poured into expensive hardware and data centers.

“The takeaway is that there are many possibilities to develop this industry. The high-end chip/capital intensive way is one technological approach. But DeepSeek proves we are still in the nascent stage of AI development and the path established by OpenAI may not be the only route to highly capable AI.”

Chinese state-linked social media accounts amplified narratives celebrating the launch of Chinese startup DeepSeek's AI models last week, days before the news tanked US tech stocks, according to online analysis firm Graphika.