The latest Aramco AI investment of $800 million in Together AI marks a strategic shift toward open-source technology. According to a report by Startup Fortune, the funding round values the San Francisco-based company at $8.3 billion. This transaction represents a significant commitment to open-weight models over proprietary alternatives.
Details of the Series C Funding Round
Aramco Ventures led the Series C round through its US-based branch, Prosperity7 Ventures. Other participants in the round included Vista Equity Partners, General Catalyst, Emergence Capital, Nvidia, March Capital, Pegatron, and SentinelOne’s S Ventures. This latest injection brings the total funding raised by Together AI to $1.3 billion.
Notably, the company was valued at $3.3 billion in February 2025 following a $305 million Series B round. The valuation has more than doubled in 17 months, reflecting rapid investor interest in open-source artificial intelligence infrastructure. Together AI currently reports annual bookings exceeding $1 billion, with platform usage tripling over the past year.
The Strategy Behind the Aramco AI investment
This Aramco AI investment, executed through Prosperity7 Ventures, aligns with national efforts to build local technology ownership. Under the framework of Saudi Vision 2030, the Kingdom continues to diversify its economic portfolio by investing in global digital infrastructure.
Abhishek Shukla of Prosperity7 Ventures stated that artificial intelligence infrastructure will represent a massive global development project over the next decade. Together AI operates training and inference systems for several prominent models, including DeepSeek, Nemotron, MiniMax, and Kimi. This setup allows businesses to deploy applications without relying solely on closed systems from providers like OpenAI or Anthropic.
Infrastructure Scale and Nvidia Involvement
Together AI plans to expand its operational capacity 50 times over the next five years. The capital from this funding round will directly support physical infrastructure, including data centers, graphics processing units (GPUs), and power contracts.
Nvidia participated in the funding round as both an investor and a primary hardware supplier. The chipmaker maintains equity positions across various infrastructure providers, benefiting from the growth of both open and closed models. This dual role ensures Nvidia remains central to the computing market regardless of which model architecture dominates.
Market Implications for Closed AI Models
Ultimately, the Aramco AI investment demonstrates that large enterprises are preparing to support open-weight alternatives. While closed-model developers retain strong brand recognition, cost and operational control remain critical factors for corporate buyers.
Vipul Ved Prakash, co-founder and chief executive of Together AI, stated that open networks make technology more affordable and faster to adopt. As open models deliver acceptable performance for tasks like customer support and document processing, the pricing power of closed providers may face pressure. However, infrastructure startups must still manage high capital requirements and falling inference prices to remain profitable.
