OpenAI has raised $11 billion in new funding at a $1.25 trillion valuation, with SoftBank and MGX leading the round, according to TechCrunch. The amount closed on November 6, 2026 is the first tranche of a round that could grow to roughly $20 billion as it finalizes over the coming weeks, well short of the $30 billion OpenAI had originally pursued.
The $1.25 trillion valuation also lands below the $1.4 trillion figure OpenAI floated earlier this year, though it still marks a sharp jump from the $852 billion post-money valuation set in its $122 billion round in March 2026.
Why the discount matters for physical AI
OpenAI's retreat from its initial valuation target comes as the company pivots from pure software toward hardware. Sam Altman committed in September 2026 to a 2027 demo of an OpenAI-branded humanoid robot, a move that puts the company in direct competition with Figure AI and 1X Technologies, two startups OpenAI itself has backed through its venture arm, alongside Physical Intelligence.
OpenAI's pitch to the robotics industry has been to supply the "brain" while partners such as Figure and 1X build the "body," with its world models trained to understand physical laws before transferring that understanding to real hardware. That strategy appears to be evolving: OpenAI has also been rebuilding an internal robotics hardware team, a sign it wants a proprietary physical product rather than staying purely an upstream model supplier to the humanoid makers it backs.
Investors and how the round compares
SoftBank's participation extends a relationship that dates back to its earlier OpenAI commitments and mirrors the conglomerate's broader physical-AI thesis, which also includes its bid for ABB's robotics unit. MGX, the Abu Dhabi-backed technology investor, has previously co-invested alongside OpenAI in AI infrastructure projects including Stargate.
The scale of this round still dwarfs anything else in robotics and physical AI funding this week. Shield AI's $2.5 billion Series H and Zipline's $1.5 billion growth round, both closed in the same 72-hour window, are each a fraction of OpenAI's $11 billion tranche, underscoring how much capital is concentrating in a handful of foundation-model companies that are now also racing into hardware.
What to watch next
The gap between OpenAI's original $30 billion target and the $11 billion closed so far suggests investors are more cautious about AI valuations than they were earlier in 2026. Whether the round reaches its reported $20 billion ceiling, and whether OpenAI's 2027 humanoid demo actually ships, will shape how much more capital flows into physical AI plays tied to foundation-model companies rather than pure robotics hardware startups.