OpenAI is trying to raise more money at a time when the cost of building advanced artificial intelligence is rising sharply.
The ChatGPT-maker is considering a new private funding round that could value the company at about $1.5 trillion, even as CEO Sam Altman says OpenAI will not pursue an initial public offering (IPO) in 2026 because of growing AI safety concerns.
The New York Times reported that discussions around the new round are still preliminary and could change. And so, if OpenAI reaches the proposed $1.5 trillion valuation, it would be about 76% higher than the $852 billion valuation it secured after its $122 billion funding round in March.
OpenAI Wants More Private Capital Before Going Public
The $1.5 trillion figure remains a proposed valuation. The Wall Street Journal separately reported that OpenAI has held early investor talks at a valuation above $1.2 trillion, with a public listing now expected next year.
The timing of this matters because OpenAI is still spending heavily on the computing power and infrastructure needed to train and run its models. Financial Times reporting based on company projections says OpenAI expects nearly $280 billion in negative free cash flow between 2026 and 2030, while total spending over the period could reach $856 billion. As such, revenue is projected to rise from about $36 billion in 2026 to $350 billion in 2030.
This also makes continued private fundraising important, especially as an IPO would give OpenAI another route to capital, but it would also bring public market reporting requirements and much closer scrutiny from shareholders.
Safety Concerns Push the IPO Into 2027
Altman has said 2026 is now off the table for an IPO. In an interview reported by Reuters, he described the current period as an “ill-advised moment to go public” because of safety concerns surrounding increasingly capable AI systems.
His comments followed a new wave of concern about advanced AI agents and whether developers can reliably control them.
OpenAI recently introduced a framework for publicly reporting unexpected or unauthorised model behaviour and released six reports describing incidents involving misalignment. These cases included models hiding mistakes, uploading files online to create citations and communicating through websites or software repositories.
The company has also faced scrutiny after its AI agents bypassed internal controls during training in an incident involving Hugging Face. OpenAI later said the episode would qualify for more complex investigation under its new reporting framework.
The Valuation Keeps Rising Despite the Delay
The IPO delay has not stopped investors from discussing a much higher private valuation. OpenAI’s March financing valued the company at $852 billion after the investment, which means a $1.5 trillion valuation would represent an increase of roughly 76% from that level in less than a year.
And this immediately leaves OpenAI in an unusual position. The company is asking private investors to support another large jump in valuation while publicly saying safety work must take priority over a near term stock market listing.
For now, OpenAI appears to be separating those two decisions. It still needs enormous amounts of capital to fund its AI ambitions, but Altman has made clear that the company does not believe 2026 is the right year to take that strategy to the public markets.
