SoftBank becomes OpenAI’s biggest shareholder with massive $40 billion investment
The artificial intelligence landscape is shifting once more with SoftBank reportedly finalizing a staggering $40 billion investment in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT and DALL-E. This massive injection of capital would catapult OpenAI's valuation to approximately $300 billion, solidifying its position as a leading force in the AI revolution.
The investment, first reported by CNBC, dwarfs the $13 billion Microsoft has invested in OpenAI, a partnership that has already faced antitrust scrutiny.
SoftBank's funding is expected to begin flowing as early as this spring and will continue over the next two years. It will reportedly support OpenAI's ambitious "Stargate" project, an initiative aimed at building cutting-edge AI infrastructure with an estimated cost of $500 billion.
Expanding relationship
This news comes hot on the heels of another significant announcement from SoftBank and OpenAI earlier this month.
On February 3rd, the two companies revealed a partnership to develop and market "Cristal intelligence," an enterprise AI solution designed to seamlessly integrate with businesses' existing systems and data.
SoftBank plans to invest $3 billion annually to deploy Cristal across its group companies, making it the first organization to implement the technology at scale. The two companies have already established a joint venture, "SB OpenAI Japan," to market Cristal to major Japanese corporations. Additionally, the agreement grants SoftBank and its subsidiaries, including Arm, priority access to OpenAI's latest and most advanced AI models.
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has been a vocal proponent of AI, predicting the emergence of a superintelligence 10,000 times smarter than the human brain within the next decade. His enthusiasm and substantial investment in OpenAI underscore his belief in the transformative potential of artificial intelligence.
What this means for Microsoft
This substantial investment from SoftBank positions them as OpenAI's largest shareholder and raises questions about the future of Microsoft's relationship with the AI powerhouse. Microsoft, while still closely partnered with OpenAI and leveraging its models in its own products, has slowly been disentangling from the AI startup.
The software giant even put up OpenAI as a competitor in its 2024 annual report, acknowledging the rivalry between their respective AI offerings. This new investment by Softbank will be seen by many as the last domino falling and Microsoft losing most of the influence it had at OpenAI.
