SoftBank Group is in discussions to invest up to an additional $30 bn in OpenAI as the Japanese conglomerate steps up its wager on the company behind ChatGPT, Reuters reports.
The potential investment would be part of a funding round that could raise as much as $100 bn for OpenAI and value the firm at roughly $830 bn, the source said.
SoftBank founder and chief executive Masayoshi Son is seeking to strengthen the group’s position in the intensifying artificial intelligence race and has made what he has described as an «all-in» commitment to OpenAI. In December, SoftBank said it had completed a $41 bn investment in the company, securing an 11 percent stake.
OpenAI is facing rapidly rising costs to train and operate its AI models as competition grows, particularly from Google, owned by Alphabet.
SoftBank’s shares rose 3.5% in morning trading in Tokyo.
Both SoftBank and OpenAI are also investors in Stargate, a $500 bn initiative aimed at building large-scale AI data centres for training and inference. Executives have said the project is central to the United States’ efforts to maintain an edge over China in artificial intelligence.
Kursiv also reports that U.S. memory chipmaker Micron Technology plans to invest $24 bn in a new semiconductor manufacturing facility in Singapore.
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