SoftBank has completed its US$40 billion investment in OpenAI

[BENGALURU] Softbank has completed its US$40 billion investment in OpenAI, CNBC reported on Tuesday (Dec 30), citing people familiar with the matter.

This marks one of the largest private funding rounds, and deepens founder Masayoshi Son’s bet on artificial intelligence (AI).

SoftBank has been building one of the largest private technology investment programmes in the world, with a particular focus on AI and related infrastructure such as data centres.

AI has become the central axis of global technology markets this year, driving a surge of investment by the world’s largest companies and reshaping investor expectations.

The Japanese conglomerate and the ChatGPT maker did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In March, SoftBank agreed to invest up to US$40 billion into a for-profit subsidiary of OpenAI, with the funding structured as a combination of direct capital and syndicated co-investment from other backers.

The deal valued OpenAI at around US$300 billion on a post-money basis, but a later secondary stock sale, completed in October, valued the company at around US$500 billion, indicated data from financial platform Pitchbook.

SoftBank sent over the final US$22 billion to US$22.5 billion investment last week, after it had syndicated US$10 billion and invested US$8 billion in OpenAI, the report said.

OpenAI has emerged as a central pillar of that industry-wide AI spending push.

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The ChatGPT maker, along with Oracle and other stakeholders, has planned a project dubbed “Stargate”, a vast, multi-year datacentre initiative aimed at supporting next-generation AI models, with backing from major investors including SoftBank. REUTERS