From Quartz.

OpenAI is pursuing a new multibillion-dollar raise in the Middle East, a development with implications for private-market records and valuation benchmarks. CEO Sam Altman recently visited the United Arab Emirates to meet sovereign wealth funds as the OpenAI funding round targets $50 billion or more, Bloomberg reports. The raise could value the company between $750 billion and $830 billion and is expected to close by the end of the first quarter.

Less than a month after SoftBank completed its $40 billion investment, OpenAI has also held talks with Amazon. Prior backers include Abu Dhabi-based MGX, and a UAE data center is under way. The company remains unprofitable amid competition from Google’s Gemini and is preparing a Super Bowl ad while exploring advertising on ChatGPT, which Altman previously called “uniquely unsettling.”

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