Apple is in talks to invest in OpenAI in an attempt to strengthen its ties with a partner integral to its efforts to gain ground in the artificial intelligence race.
The investment would be part of a new OpenAI fundraising round that would value the ChatGPT maker at more than $100 billion. Thrive Capital, the venture capital firm, is leading the round, which will total several billion dollars, with Microsoft, Apple’s rival, also expected to participate, according to The Wall Street Journal.
It is not known how much Apple or Microsoft will invest in OpenAI during this round and neither company would comment. To date, Microsoft has been the primary strategic investor in OpenAI and it owns a 49 per cent share of the start-up’s profits after investing $13 billion since 2019.
In June Apple announced OpenAI as the first official partner for Apple Intelligence, its system for infusing AI features throughout its operating system. The new AI will feature an improved Siri voice assistant, text proof-reading and creating custom emojis.
OpenAI and Anthropic, its smaller rival backed by Amazon and Alphabet, the owner of Google, have signed deals with the United States government for research, testing and evaluation of their artificial intelligence models, according to the US Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute.
“We believe the institute has a critical role to play in defining US leadership in responsibly developing artificial intelligence and hope that our work together offers a framework that the rest of the world can build on,” Jason Kwon, the chief strategy officer at OpenAI, said.
Under the deals, the AI Safety Institute will have access to key new models from both OpenAI and Anthropic before and after their public release.
The institute was launched last year as part of an executive order by President Biden’s administration to evaluate known and emerging risks of artificial intelligence models.