TOKYO: Japanese tech investor SoftBank says that its stake in OpenAI is now around 11% after completing the second stage of a US$41bil investment in the maker of ChatGPT.
Having made colossal profits as well as losses on previous investments, flamboyant founder Masayoshi Son has pivoted SoftBank towards artificial intelligence (AI).
SoftBank announced in April its planned investment of up to US$40bil in Open AI, and yesterday it said that the second tranche of US$22.5bil was completed.
The final investment reached US$41bil and includes US$30bil from SoftBank’s Vision Fund plus US$11bil from other third-party co-investors, the Japanese tech investor added.
“We are aligned with OpenAI’s vision of ensuring artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity,” Son said.
AGI is the mooted next stage of AI when computers could outperform humans in different tasks.
“SoftBank saw the potential of AI early and committed with a deep belief in its impact on humanity,” said OpenAI chief Sam Altman.
“Their global leadership and scale help us move faster and bring advanced intelligence to the world,” Altman said in the joint statement.
SoftBank and OpenAI, with Oracle, are also leading the US$500bil Stargate project to build AI infrastructure in the United States announced by President Donald Trump in January 2025.
SoftBank also announced this week that it is buying US data centre investor DigitalBridge in a deal worth around US$4bil. — AFP
