By Adam Clark

OpenAI keeps getting bigger. The ChatGPT-developer is now valued at about the same as oil giant Exxon Mobil and a raft of stocks are set to benefit from its enormous spending on artificial-intelligence infrastructure.

OpenAI, which is privately held, was valued at $500 billion in a deal that saw existing investors SoftBank Group and United Arab Emirates-based MGX pay around $6.6 billion to buy shares owned by some of the company's employees, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

OpenAI didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday morning.

While such a sale doesn't bring in any direct funding for OpenAI, it means the company should be able to raise more money for smaller chunks of equity in future funding rounds. It also sets the scene for a blockbuster initial public offering at some point, although there are no indications OpenAI is preparing for an IPO yet.

OpenAI will likely need the money. It has committed to a $300 billion cloud-computing deal over five years with Oracle, contracts worth up to $22.4 billion with AI cloud company CoreWeave, and is widely thought to be the mystery $10 billion customer for custom chip designer Broadcom.

Each of those companies' stocks were rising early Thursday as the new valuation could help reassure investors that OpenAI will be good for its side of the deals. Its plans are also backstopped by an investment of up to $100 billion from Nvidia.

Another company which should eventually benefit from OpenAI's stellar valuation is its early backer Microsoft. While the two companies have become less reliant on each other over time, Microsoft is still set to receive a roughly 30% equity stake in OpenAI's for-profit arm once it has completed its lengthy restructuring and still provides cloud-computing resources for the start-up.

More indirect beneficiaries of OpenAI's spending plans include various companies in the AI supply chain, especially storage and memory stocks. Shares of hard-drive makers Western Digital and Seagate Technology Holdings have nearly tripled this year so far as AI creates demand for more storage space. Both were gaining again early on Thursday.

Another winner could be memory-chip maker Micron Technology. While OpenAI signed a huge agreement with Micron's South Korean rivals SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics to bring them on as partners for its Stargate infrastructure project, there should be plenty of business to go around. The two Korean companies are aiming to meet demand relating to advanced memory chips for AI processors equivalent to more than 900,000 semiconductor wafers a month -- more than double the current industry capacity.

Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com

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October 02, 2025 10:45 ET (14:45 GMT)

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