Valuations for AI giants are skyrocketing. According to the latest reports, OpenAI's new funding round is expected to surpass $100 billion. Including this round, OpenAI's total valuation could exceed $850 billion, a dramatic 70% surge since the end of last year.

In related developments, on February 19, India's Tata Group announced a partnership with OpenAI to jointly build artificial intelligence infrastructure in India and launch combined market solutions. On the same day, Reliance Industries of India declared it would invest $110 billion over the next seven years to advance AI data center construction. Just two days prior, the Adani Group announced plans to invest $100 billion by 2035 to build large-scale data centers.

This means that the combined future investment in the AI data center sector from just Reliance Industries and the Adani Group alone will reach $210 billion, equivalent to approximately 1.45 trillion yuan.

OpenAI's valuation is poised to surge to $850 billion. Sources familiar with the matter, as reported by Bloomberg, indicate that OpenAI is close to completing the first stage of a new funding round, which is expected to raise over $100 billion. This record-breaking financing deal will provide the startup with more capital to build out its artificial intelligence tools.

Some sources stated that as the ChatGPT maker prepares to invest trillions in infrastructure, its overall valuation could exceed $850 billion after the final funding amount is included, which is higher than the initial expectation of $830 billion. One anonymous source mentioned that the company's pre-money valuation will remain at $730 billion. At the end of 2025, OpenAI's valuation was approximately $500 billion.

The report indicated that the first part of this funding round will primarily come from strategic investors, including Amazon, SoftBank Group, NVIDIA, and Microsoft. If investments from these companies approach the higher end of the discussed range, these commitments could be close to $100 billion. Some sources expect these companies to finalize their respective investment portions by the end of this month.

Subsequent stages of the funding round will include venture capital firms, sovereign wealth funds, and other financial investors, and are expected to be completed later, potentially significantly increasing the total funds raised. The deal has not been finalized, and details are still subject to change.

Previous Bloomberg reporting suggested that, related to the impending deal, Amazon is expected to invest up to $50 billion, SoftBank up to $30 billion, and NVIDIA has discussed committing $20 billion. Funds from corporate investors are expected to be delivered in several tranches within the year.

On February 19, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the IT subsidiary of India's Tata Group, announced a strategic alliance with OpenAI. The partnership plans to build AI infrastructure in India and jointly launch market-facing solutions.

Tata Group stated that the collaboration will enable thousands of TCS employees to use OpenAI's enterprise-grade ChatGPT tools to enhance productivity and innovation capabilities. TCS will also deploy OpenAI's Codex model to improve software engineering outcomes.

Under a multi-year agreement, TCS's HyperVault division will build AI-ready infrastructure powered by green energy to support next-generation workloads. The company stated that the planned facilities will include data centers specifically designed for high rack density and utilizing liquid cooling technology, while also achieving interconnectivity with major cloud regions. This initiative aims to strengthen India's position as a global AI hub.

"In the initial phase, TCS will develop AI infrastructure with a capacity of 100 megawatts, with an option to scale to gigawatt levels. This infrastructure will power next-generation AI workloads and position India as a global AI center," the Indian company said in a statement.

The two companies also plan to jointly build industry-specific agent AI solutions by integrating OpenAI's platform with TCS's industry and domain expertise. As part of joint market promotion efforts, the IT giant TCS stated it will deploy, integrate, and scale OpenAI's AI products for enterprises in India and abroad, facilitating company-wide AI transformation.

Commenting on the partnership, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, "Through the 'OpenAI for India' initiative and the collaboration with the Tata Group, we are working together to build the necessary infrastructure, skills, and local partnerships to build AI with India, for India, and in India, enabling more of the country's people to access and benefit from it."

Notably, on the very same day, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Industries, announced that Reliance and its telecom subsidiary Jio will invest $109.8 billion over the next seven years in building artificial intelligence and data infrastructure.

Speaking at an AI impact summit in New Delhi, Ambani stated that this investment will serve as long-term "nation-building" capital, focusing on areas such as national-level AI computing power. Currently, shortages in computing power and high costs remain the biggest constraints on the development of indigenous AI in India.

Jio is building a multi-gigawatt, AI-adapted large-scale data center in Jamnagar. Ambani revealed that over 120 megawatts of computing power will become operational in the second half of this year. He also stated that the telecom company plans to build AI-dedicated data centers powered by renewable energy.

Earlier this week, the Adani Group, an Indian energy and logistics conglomerate, announced plans to invest $100 billion by 2035 to build AI-supportive data centers driven by renewable energy, aiming to create the world's largest integrated data center platform. The group stated that this investment will help India secure a more favorable position in the global AI race, anticipating the creation of an AI infrastructure ecosystem worth approximately $250 billion in India within the next decade.