According to initial reports from the on Wednesday evening, SoftBank is in talks to invest up to$ 25 billion directly into OpenAI, making the Japanese tech conglomerate the largest financial backer for the ChatGPT maker.

If the offer goes by, the funding may eclipse Microsoft’s$ 13 billion play and mark SoftBank’s most ambitious artificial intelligence guess to date.

Following a week of significant changes in the artificial intelligence business, information of the agreement between SoftBank and Open were revealed.

Last week, SoftBank committed some$ 15 billion to Stargate, a$ 500 billion data center project involving OpenAI, Oracle, and investment firm MGX.

The job was announced by U. S. President Donald Trump.

President Trump stated from the White House that the project do” make over 100, 000 American jobs” with plans to construct data centers in Texas.

The Stargate job may be led by Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank.

The expanding reef

The significant funding represents a strategic turn for OpenAI as it reduces its reliance on Microsoft’s processing system.

As part of the Stargate arrangement, Microsoft agreed to abandon its position as OpenAI’s special cloud service, opening the door to collaborations with companies like Oracle.

These deals are “ongoing” although the amount of Softbank’s key capital assets into OpenAI remains” a passing specific”, the statement indicates, quoting a person familiar with the matter who claimed that when combined, these opportunities may “exceed$ 40 billion”.

About 20 % of Stargate’s money will come from capital, with the remaining financed through loan secured against its resources and future money flows, according to people close to the discussions.

Similar to traditional infrastructure project borrowing, but in a size that is unmatched for the tech industry.

For SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son, the investment aligns with his vision of achieving” super-intelligence “—technology that surpasses human cognitive abilities.

Sources cited in preliminary reports claim Brother has spent years pursuing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, believing that this partnership will be essential to dominating the next-generation AI infrastructure.

As OpenAI’s board works to change the business into a for-profit people benefit organization, this timing is crucial.

The Artificial company has tapped Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon and consulting agency M. Klein &amp, Co to help design the change, with legal guidance from Wachtell Lipton’s Andy Nussbaum.

OpenAI reached a$ 157 billion valuation last year after raising roughly$ 20 billion across multiple funding rounds, including SoftBank’s earlier$ 2 billion stake.

Debt-heavy jumps

As Taiwanese firm DeepSeek dominated media over the past week, these transition and expanding initiatives are underway, undoubtedly showing how sophisticated AI models can be created on comparatively small budgets.

” Beyond model performance, proprietary information and real-world software will eventually determine sustained leadership—favoring those with the solutions to scale AI across business”, Jack Tan, co-founder of crypto change Seduce X, told .

Tan, whose business has partnerships with AI-powered Web3 search engine Kaito and makes investments in AI for high-frequency trading, suggested that organizations with substantial infrastructure will be in the long-term battle for AI dominance.

The arrival of DeepSeek” challenged the assumption that Stargate’s hyperscale compute is essential, as small node operators could reduce reliance on it”, Tan told .

However, the SoftBank-OpenA I deal’s debt-heavy structure, leveraged at 80 %, is reminiscent of its investment in coworking space firm WeWork.

If completed, the investment would dwarf SoftBank’s infamous$ 16 billion bet on WeWork.

OpenAI and SoftBank did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comments on their negotiations.

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