SoftBank might invest $30B more in OpenAI
What's the story
SoftBank Group is reportedly considering a massive investment of up to $30 billion in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. The move comes as part of a larger funding round that could potentially raise as much as $100 billion for the artificial intelligence (AI) firm. If successful, this would value OpenAI at around $830 billion.
Investment strategy
SoftBank's strategic move in AI race
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son is betting big on OpenAI to strengthen the company's position in the AI race. In December, SoftBank had announced a $41 billion investment in OpenAI, acquiring an 11% stake. The latest investment talks come as OpenAI faces rising costs for training and running its AI models amid increasing competition from Alphabet's Google.
Fund allocation
SoftBank's previous investment impacted deal-making
The Wall Street Journal first reported the news of SoftBank's potential new investment in OpenAI. However, it is worth noting that Son had previously struggled to gather funds for the earlier investment, which had slowed down other deal-making at SoftBank's Vision Fund.
Stargate project
SoftBank and OpenAI's joint investment in Stargate
Interestingly, both OpenAI and SoftBank are investors in Stargate, a $500 billion project aimed at building AI data centers for training and inference. Executives say this initiative is critical to the US government's efforts to stay ahead of China in the field of artificial intelligence. The collaboration further highlights the strategic partnerships being formed in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.