Thanks to the new investment, the startup’s valuation could reach $29 billion

Microsoft Corp. is in talks to invest up to $10 billion in OpenAI, maker of the artificial intelligence viral bot ChatGPT, according to knowledgeable sources.

The proposal under consideration requires the Redmond, Washington, software giant to invest over several years, although final terms could change. The two companies have been discussing the deal for months.

The potential investment could value OpenAI at about $29 billion.

Representatives for Microsoft and OpenAI declined to comment.

ChatGPT was launched in late November, garnering its first million users in less than a week. The bot’s imitation of human conversation sparked rumors of its ability to displace professional writers and even threaten Google’s core search business. The bot’s developer is the startup OpenAI, co-founded by Ilon Musk and Silicon Valley investor Sam Altman.

The new technology is built on OpenAI’s GPT-3 language model, which can be considered a major advance in the field of artificial intelligence.