SoftBank Group is in discussions to invest up to an additional $30 billion in OpenAI, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday, as the Japanese conglomerate doubles down on its stake in the ChatGPT maker, reports Reuters.
The potential investment would be part of a broader funding round that could raise as much as $100 billion for OpenAI, valuing the company at roughly $830 billion, the source said.
SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son has described his approach as an “all-in” bet on OpenAI to strengthen the group’s position in the global artificial intelligence race. In December, SoftBank completed a $41 billion investment in OpenAI, securing an 11% stake.
OpenAI faces rising costs to train and operate its AI models, even as competition intensifies from Alphabet’s Google.
The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. SoftBank shares rose 3.5% in Tokyo morning trading, though the company declined to comment.
Reuters reported last month that Son had scrambled to assemble funds for the previous OpenAI investment, slowing most other dealmaking at SoftBank’s Vision Fund.
Both SoftBank and OpenAI are investors in Stargate, a $500 billion initiative to build AI data centers for training and inference. Executives have said the project is crucial to the US government’s efforts to maintain an edge over China in artificial intelligence.
Bd-pratidin English/ Jisan
