OpenAI's $1.25 trillion round and compute deals: what is on the record

What is on the record about OpenAI's new round?

Less than the headlines suggest. Spezia found no announcement from OpenAI about the round. The on-the-record source is OpenAI's chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, who spoke to CNBC on November 6, 2026. Everything else is reporting, much of it from anonymous sources.

Two earlier CNBC reports show how the size moved. On October 22 it reported a round of up to $30 billion. On October 31 it reported a target of up to $20 billion. Both used anonymous sources.

Is the $1.25 trillion valuation before or after the new money?

The sources disagree. A valuation before the new money is called pre-money. A valuation after it is called post-money. The difference is the amount raised, so it matters most when the round is large.

CNBC's unofficial transcript has the CFO saying the company will raise at a pre-money valuation, but it prints the unit as "billion", and CNBC's article prints the same unit. That is likely an error for trillion, because the interviewer's question cites $1.4 trillion. A CNBC report on October 22, citing anonymous sources, also said pre-money. A CNBC report on October 31 relaying the Financial Times said the company would seek a post-money valuation of $1.25 trillion.

If the figure is pre-money, the value after $11 billion would be about $1,261 billion, by Spezia's arithmetic. Until OpenAI publishes the terms, the safe way to write it is "reported at $1.25 trillion".

The CFO described the valuation as almost a 50 percent lift on the round OpenAI closed in March.

What has OpenAI said about its business?

In the same interview, the CFO gave growth rates and a mix, but no dollar revenue.

• The business grew 70 percent from the second quarter to the third.
• The enterprise business doubled over the same quarter.
• The business is split about evenly between consumers and enterprises, she said.
• Advertising reached a run rate of a billion dollars a year, less than 200 days after it launched.
• On margins, she said the company has not talked about them publicly.

These are spoken statements in an unofficial transcript. Treat them as the company's claims, not audited results. A company with a public registration statement, such as Anthropic, publishes audited annual financial statements. For that comparison, see Anthropic's IPO filing, explained.

What exactly has Amazon committed to OpenAI?

Two separate things, both in Amazon's filings.

The first is a cloud contract. Amazon's quarterly report for the period ended September 30, 2026 says AWS and OpenAI expanded an existing $38 billion multi-year commitment by $100 billion over 8 years. Amazon's press release adds that OpenAI committed to use about 2 gigawatts of Amazon's Trainium capacity. By Spezia's arithmetic the two together come to $138 billion.

The second is an equity investment. Amazon's filing says it holds $50 billion of OpenAI's Series C Preferred Stock as of September 30, 2026. It put in $15.0 billion first, and the remaining $35.0 billion came in the second and third quarters.

So money runs in both directions between the two companies. Amazon invested $50 billion in OpenAI, and OpenAI committed $138 billion to Amazon's cloud. They are separate contracts, and the $100 billion is a commitment by OpenAI to buy services, not a payment by Amazon.

What is NVIDIA's $105 billion guarantee?

It is a promise to cover a shortfall if OpenAI does not pay. NVIDIA's filing of August 17, 2026 describes residual value guaranties on leases for about 4.25 gigawatts of computing load at a campus in Pike County, Ohio. SB Energy is the landlord, and an affiliate of OpenAI is the tenant.

The details limit what the headline number means.

• A cap, not a cost. NVIDIA's total payment is capped at $105 billion for its initial commitment. That is not the cost of building the campus.
• A trigger. NVIDIA pays only if OpenAI becomes insolvent and defaults on a lease, or fails to make payments under one. Then NVIDIA pays the gap between the guaranteed minimum value of the lease and what is recovered from a replacement lease or a sale.
• Repayment. OpenAI has agreed to reimburse and indemnify NVIDIA for what it pays.
• Limited scope. NVIDIA's quarterly report says the guarantees cover defined portions of lease and power payments, not the full cost of the site or all of the tenant's obligations.
• Timing. NVIDIA's 8-K expects ready-for-service conditions to begin to be met in 2028. Its quarterly report expects the first of nine phases in fiscal 2029, and says the exposure declines over each phase's 20-year lease.

NVIDIA can also provide credit support for about 3.8 more gigawatts at its sole discretion.

Why are deals like these described as circular?

Because a supplier can end up funding its own customer. Amazon sells OpenAI cloud services and owns OpenAI stock. NVIDIA guarantees leases on a campus that will host NVIDIA's computing platform for its tenant, an OpenAI affiliate. Each contract has its own terms. Read each one for who pays, when, and what triggers payment.

Four questions help.

1. Who pays whom, and when? An investment, a purchase commitment and a guarantee are different cash flows.
2. What triggers payment? A purchase commitment is owed. A guarantee is owed only on a default.
3. What is counted twice? The same dollars can appear in an investment, a cloud contract and a lease.
4. Who can walk away? Look for termination rights, as Spezia does when it reads Anthropic's commitments.

Spezia is a research product, not an adviser. Nothing here is investment advice.