The SoftBank investment group of Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son is in negotiations to invest up to $25 billion in OpenAI. If this figure is accurate and the negotiations proceed smoothly, SoftBank will dethrone Microsoft, becoming the largest investor in OpenAI, and SoftBank will help OpenAI build a massive AI operational infrastructure project.
Last week, SoftBank and OpenAI announced they would collaborate to lead a group of businesses and investors, pouring $100 billion into the Stargate system, a massive data center project announced by US President Donald Trump himself. Over the next four years, the funds required to build the Stargate system could reach $500 billion.
In a separate deal currently under negotiation, SoftBank is expected to invest between $15 to $25 billion directly in OpenAI, in addition to promising to invest $15 billion into the Stargate system.
This means that the Japanese conglomerate will pour up to $40 billion into collaborating with OpenAI. A source from the Financial Times stated: 'The negotiation process is focusing on the amount of money that SoftBank will invest in OpenAI. This figure is currently under discussion.'
It is safe to say that this is a very large and ambitious gamble by Masayoshi Son, to transform SoftBank under his leadership into a leading entity in the artificial intelligence industry, by strengthening relations with OpenAI and with CEO Sam Altman.
When discussing the project to build the massive Stargate cloud server system, several top names in the American technology sector, including Elon Musk, have raised questions about how to gather the enormous capital needed to execute the project.
On another note, anonymous sources say that Mr. Son has spent several years approaching Sam Altman, as the Korean-Japanese billionaire seeks to strengthen his position as well as that of SoftBank, transforming the conglomerate into an important player in the race to develop artificial intelligence. To achieve this, Mr. Son believes that investing in OpenAI is central to a broader strategy to fulfill his self-imposed mission of creating 'superintelligence,' a technology that could surpass the capabilities of the human brain.
This plan outlines the ambition for comprehensive investment in AI technology, from the electrical grid infrastructure serving data centers to automation and large-scale data center systems. To this day, Son still believes that ARM, the UK-based semiconductor design and development company owned by SoftBank, still has the capability to independently design chips that serve AI algorithm operations.
Throughout his investment career, billionaire Masayoshi Son has taken many large and risky gambles, including substantial investments that ended in disastrous failures, only for him to return with victories that earned market admiration. If SoftBank decides to inject $40 billion into OpenAI, both to purchase stakes in the company and to invest in building part of the Starlink system, this would be SoftBank's and Mr. Son's largest gamble since the spectacular $16 billion failure when SoftBank invested in WeWork.
For OpenAI, they have raised about $20 billion after several funding rounds, including $13 billion from Microsoft. Their market capitalization is estimated to reach $157 billion by 2024. Last year, SoftBank also purchased $2 billion worth of shares in OpenAI.
At the same time, Sam Altman is also looking for ways to reduce OpenAI's dependence on their largest investor to date, Microsoft, at least in terms of server resources. These efforts range from developing their own AI processing chips to collaborating with other cloud service providers like Oracle. Recently, Microsoft also agreed to relinquish its exclusive position in providing cloud services to OpenAI, allowing the organization to freely collaborate with other providers.
And as previously mentioned, OpenAI is currently undergoing a restructuring of its leadership to transform this startup from a nonprofit research entity into a purely profit-driven corporation, a shift that allows Altman more opportunities to raise funds to continue expanding the development of next-generation AI models.
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