Artificial Atlas

Who is betting on what in AI, and against whom.

OpenAI

GPT lineage through GPT-6 Astra (September 2026), o-series reasoning, agents. Secondary positions in world simulation and robotics.

HQ
San Francisco
Founded
Dec 2015
Web
openai.com
Camps
LLM scaling World models Physical AI

Suggest a correction

What it does

OpenAI trained the GPT series on internet text, then added reinforcement learning from human feedback and, with the o-series, reinforcement learning on verifiable outcomes. Its bet is that scale plus post-training plus tools gets to general capability. It filed confidentially for an IPO in June 2026, a week after Anthropic.

Camp membership over time

  1. dates not recorded
    Scale next-token prediction
    GPT lineage, o-series reasoning, agents. Filed confidentially for an IPO in June 2026.
    Sources OpenAI files confidentially for IPO, following Anthropic TechCrunch 2026-06-08
  2. dates not recorded
    World models (secondary)
    Sora positioned as a world simulator.
    Sources Video generation models as world simulators (Sora technical report) OpenAI 2024-02-15
  3. dates not recorded
    Physical AI and robotics (secondary)
    Rebuilt a robotics and hardware group from late 2024; its hardware lead resigned in March 2026 over a Pentagon contract.
    Sources Caitlin Kalinowski Wikipedia 2026-09-04

Capital

AmountKindValuationDateInvestorsSource
$10Bstrategic investment Jan 2023 Microsoft Multiyear, multibillion-dollar extension of the Microsoft partnership; $10B widely reported. The Verge
$6.6Bfunding round $157B post-moneyOct 2024 Thrive Capital, Microsoft, Nvidia, SoftBank TechCrunch
$40Bfunding round $300B post-moneyMar 2025 SoftBank SoftBank committed $30B of the $40B. CNBC
$122Bfunding round $852B post-moneyMar 2026 Amazon, Nvidia, SoftBank Announced at $110B on 27 February (Amazon $50B, Nvidia $30B, SoftBank $30B); closed at $122B on 31 March, including $3B from retail investors. CNBC, CNBC

People

Sam AltmanCEO
Greg BrockmanPresident and co-founder
NBNoam BrownResearch scientist, reasoning
MCMark ChenChief research officer
Jakub PachockiChief scientist
WZWojciech ZarembaCo-founder
LFLiam FedusVP of research, post-training (until 2025)
CKCaitlin KalinowskiHead of robotics and consumer hardware (until Mar 2026)
Mira MuratiChief technology officer (until Sep 2024)
JSJohn SchulmanCo-founder; RLHF lead (until Aug 2024)
KSKenneth StanleyLed open-endedness team (until 2022)
Ilya SutskeverCo-founder and chief scientist (until May 2024)
BZBarret ZophPost-training research (until 2025)

General sources

OpenAI files confidentially for IPO, following Anthropic TechCrunch 2026-06-08 · Introducing GPT-6 Astra OpenAI 2026-09-03 · GPT-6 Astra safety overview OpenAI 2026-09-03 · 'Welcome to the AGI era,' OpenAI says as GPT-6 Astra debuts Axios 2026-09-03 · OpenAI announces rollout of GPT-6 Astra model CNBC 2026-09-03