OpenAI eyes $25 billion investment from SoftBank amid DeepSeek shock
Softbank is in conversation to invest up to $ 25 billion in OpenAI as part of a broader partnership that the Japanese conglomerate could release more than $ 40 billion to AI initiatives with the Microsoft startup, according to to the financial time.
The potential investment would make Softbank OpenAi’s largest single backer, according to the report, which surpasses Microsoft, which for the first time invested in the Chatgpt -maker in 2019. The deal comes after both companies announced last week that they would jointly invest $ 100 billion in Stargate, an American data center, an American data center, an American data rig project for OpenAI that could expand to $ 500 billion in four years.
Softbank is planning to invest $ 15 billion up to $ 25 billion directly in OpenAI, in addition to the $ 15 billion stargate obligation, according to the report. OpenAI will invest around $ 15 billion in Stargate, with the stock investment of Softbank that may comprise the Infrastructure obligation of OpenAI.
The conversations come at a time when the Chinese company Deepseek’s release of his R1 “reasoning model”, which was built on a relatively modest budget, rattled public markets this week.
The chip giant Nvidia lost no less than $ 589 billion in a day before he made a light recovery, because investors were worried that large investments in expensive AI hardware might not be necessary if companies could achieve comparable results with fewer resources.
Earlier this week, OpenAi claimed that the evidence had found that Deepseek used the Own Models from OpenAi to train R1 and other models through a technique called “Distillation”, with which developers can achieve comparable performance with smaller models at much lower costs. The company says that this would violate its service conditions, which forbids the use of Output to develop competitive models.
The OpenAI deal with Softbank, of which Financial Times says it has not been completed, represents the largest gamble from Softbank founder Masayoshi Son since injecting $ 16 billion in Wework. It would also reduce the dependence on Microsoft for computer sources, where Microsoft recently agrees to give up his position as an exclusive cloud provider of OpenAI.
About 20% of Stargate financing is expected to be equity, whereby the rest is financed by debts protected against assets and cash flow, according to the report. OpenAi, who reached a rating of $ 157 billion last year, is also negotiating to become a profitable company to facilitate extra fundraising.
