Apple has ended talks to join an OpenAI funding round that was expected to raise up to $6.5 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter, reports the Wall Street Journal.
The last-minute decision to pull out would have seen Apple invest into another major Silicon Valley company.
The talks, which are set to conclude next week, continue with other major players. Microsoft and Nvidia have been in discussions to participate, with Microsoft expected to invest roughly $1 billion, on top of the $13 billion it has already put into OpenAI, according to sources close to the negotiations.
In addition to securing funding, OpenAI is working on restructuring from a nonprofit to a for-profit entity. If the restructuring isn’t completed within two years, investors in the current round will have the right to request a refund of their investments.
Back in July, Apple ditched an OpenAI observer board seat, along with Microsoft. Apple will be integrating ChatGPT into the iPhone, iPad and Mac, expected next month.
OpenAI recently rolled out its Advanced Voice Mode for ChatGPT, which is already live in Canada and incredibly impressive (and somewhat scary). The new voice mode blows Apple’s Siri out of the water, easily. Recently, OpenAI has seen an exodus of some of its major executives as it appears the AI company is getting a shake up.
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Apple faces a tough choice between partnering with OpenAI backed by Microsoft or Gemini and Google, or continuing to develop Siri independently.
Apple has already steered clear of NVIDIA by opting for their own Private Compute server chips for iCloud AI processing. Seems they are choosing to develop Siri rather than invest in third party gen AI's. Probably a good move with so many gen AI's being trained now by smaller companies, why not just train Siri?