SoftBank Group Corp is in discussions to invest up to an additional $30 billion in OpenAI, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, reflecting the Japanese conglomerate’s continued bet on the ChatGPT owner.
The potential investment would be part of a funding round that could raise as much as $100 billion for OpenAI, valuing the company at roughly $830 billion, the source added.
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has made an “all-in” wager on OpenAI in an effort to strengthen the company’s position in the artificial intelligence race. In December, SoftBank completed a $41 billion investment in OpenAI, securing an 11% stake.
OpenAI is facing rising costs to train and operate its AI models, even as competition from Alphabet’s Google intensifies. SoftBank, whose shares rose 3.5% in Tokyo morning trading, declined to comment. Reuters reported last month that Son had rushed to assemble funds for the earlier investment, which slowed most other dealmaking at SoftBank’s Vision Fund.
Beyond direct investment, both OpenAI and SoftBank are backing Stargate, a $500 billion initiative to build AI data centers for training and inference. SoftBank’s SB Energy is partnering with OpenAI to develop its AI infrastructure platform, also called Stargate. As part of this partnership, OpenAI and SoftBank are each investing $500 million into SB Energy.
SB Energy has been selected by OpenAI to construct and operate the company’s previously announced 1.2-gigawatt data center in Milam County, Texas. OpenAI has said the project is expected to generate thousands of construction jobs. The two companies, along with SB Energy, have formed a preferred partnership to create a new model for data center development.
