By MICHELLE CHAPMAN, AP Business Writer

ChatGPT maker OpenAI has received $110 billion in funding from Amazon, SoftBank and Nvidia, putting the technology company’s pre-money valuation at $730 billion.

Related Articles

Social media can be addictive even for adults, but there are ways to cut back

Why adults pursuing career growth or personal interests are the ‘new majority’ student

Target to stop selling cereals with certified synthetic colors by end of May

US wholesale prices arrive hotter than expected, up 0.5% from December and 2.9% from a year ago

US stocks sink and oil prices rise as worries about AI, inflation and possible war hit Wall Street

Amazon is leading the trio of tech heavyweights in commitments, putting up $50 billion, followed by $30 billion each from Nvidia and SoftBank, said OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman on Friday. Other investors are anticipated to join as the funding round progresses.

Amazon will start with an initial $15 billion investment and will invest an additional $35 billion in the coming months under preset conditions.

“These partnerships expand our global reach, deepen our infrastructure, and strengthen our balance sheet so we can bring frontier AI to more people, more businesses, and more communities worldwide,” he wrote.

Altman said that ChatGPT has more than 900 million weekly active users, and more than 50 million consumer subscribers.

“We are entering a new phase where frontier AI moves from research into daily use at global scale,” he said. “Leadership will be defined by who can scale infrastructure fast enough to meet demand, and turn that capacity into products people rely on. This funding and these partnerships let us do both, and move faster on our mission to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity.”

OpenAI and Amazon’s multiyear partnership will include bringing new advanced AI capabilities to enterprises and having Amazon Web Services serve as the exclusive third-party cloud distribution provider for OpenAI Frontier. OpenAI and AWS will expand their current $38 billion multiyear deal by $100 billion over eight years. The companies will partner on developing customized models available to Amazon developers to power Amazon’s customer-facing applications.

OpenAI said it is also expanding its partnership with Nvidia.

OpenAI and Microsoft have had a partnership since 2019. OpenAI said in a statement that nothing about the funding or new partners announced Friday “in any way changes the terms” of its relationship with Microsoft.

“The partnership remains strong and central,” OpenAI said.

Texas Observer reader, 

And so comes primary season. That time of year when Texas Democratic voters gather to, through a process about as reliable as the reading of grackle entrails, divine which among various long-shot candidates has the greatest chance of breaking the GOP’s death grip on our still-worth-saving state. 

That same time of year when those same voters issue prayers that Republicans will finally nominate someone too unhinged even for Texas to elect—though perhaps those prayers would be better spent wishing for the GOP to send its own lesser evils on to November.

Over at the Observer website, we’ll do our best to parse these low-turnout affairs that unfortunately remain the elections of consequence in this state.

March/April cover (Brenda Bazan/Texas Observer)

Meanwhile, you—the savvy print reader who hasn’t let Elon Musk et al. sap all of your life’s limited attention—will be in for a treat with this magazine. In addition to our typical investigative fare, in this case covering privatized military housing and the Trumpian federal judiciary, we also have a feature that’s a bit unusual for us: an impassioned defense of a particular reptile. Lest you think we’ve taken a frivolous turn, I believe you’ll find that this story actually has quite a strong, well, bite. It takes to task not only certain profitable Texas traditions but also our blinkered way of viewing nonhuman life in this state and far beyond. 

You’ll find as well a beautiful reflection on belonging and exclusion from April Maria Ortiz, one of a few new contributing editors added to our masthead this issue, and, bittersweetly, a final magazine piece from our McHam investigative reporting fellow, Francesca D’Annunzio. 

After two years with the Observer, Francesca has taken an exciting new opportunity in journalism, the exact type of gig we love to see one of our fellows move on to. However, her enthusiasm, dedication, indignation, and black cat Luna will all be sorely missed here at Observer HQ.

Solidarity,

Note: To be the first to get all the stories in our bimonthly issues, become a Texas Observer member here.

The post Editor’s Letter: Introducing Our March/April 2026 Issue appeared first on The Texas Observer.

VIENNA (AP) — Iran has not allowed the United Nations nuclear watchdog to access nuclear facilities affected by the 12-day war in June, according to a confidential report by the watchdog circulated to member states and seen Friday by The Associated Press.

The report from the International Atomic Energy Agency stressed that therefore it “cannot verify whether Iran has suspended all enrichment-related activities,” or the “size of Iran’s uranium stockpile at the affected nuclear facilities.”

The IAEA also reported that it had observed, through the analysis of commercially available satellite imagery, “regular vehicular activity around the entrance to the tunnel complex at Isfahan.”

The facility in Isfahan, some 215 miles southeast of Tehran, was mainly known for producing the uranium gas that is fed into centrifuges to be spun and purified.

Israel has struck buildings at the Isfahan nuclear site, among them a uranium conversion facility. The U.S. also struck Isfahan with missiles during the war last June.

The IAEA also reported that through the analysis of commercially-available satellite imagery, it has observed “activities being conducted at some of the affected nuclear facilities, including the enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow,” but it added that “without access to these facilities it is not possible for the Agency to confirm the nature and the purpose of the activities.”

By BEN FINLEY and JAMIE STENGLE

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scouting America will alter several policies at the urging of the Pentagon, including a requirement that members use “biological sex at birth and not gender identity,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday.

Some of the changes mirror what the organization suggested to the Defense Department in January, which included discontinuing its Citizenship in Society merit badge and introducing a Military Service merit badge as well as waiving registration fees for the children of military personnel.

Related Articles

Wall Street heading toward losing week; Block cuts 40% of its workforce citing shift to AI

US military used laser to take down Border Protection drone, lawmakers say

Anthropic refuses to bend to Pentagon on AI safeguards as dispute nears deadline

Today in History: February 27, American Indian Movement takes over Wounded Knee

Novartis settles with Henrietta Lacks’ estate over use of her ‘stolen’ cells to advance medicine

Hegseth said in video posted on X that the Pentagon will “vigorously review” the changes the organization has made in six months and will cease its support of Scouting America if fails to comply.

“We hope that doesn’t happen, but it could,” Hegseth said. “Ideally I believe the Boy Scouts should go back to being the Boy Scouts as originally founded, a group that develops boys into men. Maybe someday.”

Under Hegseth, the Pentagon has taken aim at the military’s partnership with Scouting America, decrying its historic rebrand in 2024 from the Boy Scouts and other changes in recent years that he sees as part of “woke culture” efforts that he wants to root out.

The organization began allowing gay youth in 2013, ended a blanket ban on gay adult leaders in 2015 and announced in 2017 that it would accept transgender students. It began accepting girls as Cub Scouts as of 2018 and into the flagship Boy Scout program — renamed Scouts BSA — in 2019. As of May 2024, more than 6,000 girls had earned the coveted Eagle Scout rank.

The Pentagon said in a statement earlier this month that it was reviewing its relationship with Scouting America, claiming it had “lost its way” in many ways and calling the organization’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts “unacceptable.”

“Scouting America’s leadership has made decisions that run counter to the values of this administration,” the Feb. 6 statement said, ”including an embrace of DEl and other social justice, gender-fluid ideological stances.”

The Pentagon previously said it and Scouting America were nearing an agreement to continue their partnership if the organization “rapidly implements the common-sense, core value reforms.”

“Scouting America remains far from perfect, but they have firmly committed to a return to core principles,” the statement said. “Back to God and country—immediately!