SoftBank Eyes $500M OpenAI Investment, Shares Rise – Major AI Deal

SoftBank’s stock went up again because the Japanese company might take part in a funding round for OpenAI.

The stock price of SoftBank Group went up again because the Japanese company might take part in a funding round for OpenAI. This could help Masayoshi Son in the race to develop artificial intelligence.

A person with knowledge of the deal told the Information that SoftBank’s Vision Fund wants to put $500 million into OpenAI.  Bloomberg said that OpenAI is in talks with investors to raise $6.5 billion. This would put the value of the company at $150 billion. It is planned that Thrive Capital will lead the funding round, with Microsoft the company’s biggest investor, and other backers also taking part.

SoftBank stock went up 3.4% in the morning on Tuesday, making up for some of the ground that was lost during a big selloff in Tokyo the day before, after the election of the new leader of the ruling party.

OpenAI would become one of the most valuable startups in the world with the planned funding round, but it comes at a time of uncertainty for the well-known AI company. Mira Murati, who is the Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI, said last week that she is departing from the company. She is the latest top manager to leave the company this year. Bloomberg earlier said that OpenAI is also thinking about changing its structure to become a for-profit business.

SoftBank has never put money into OpenAI before because it wants to use its huge amount of cash to buy AI chips and build up Japan’s AI infrastructure. But they have worked together to help SoftBank’s domestic telecom unit reach its goal of making a Japanese big language model, and Son has said that he talks to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman a lot.

In June, SoftBank’s Vision Fund put $3 billion into Perplexity AI, an AI search company that competes with OpenAI.