Jan
OpenAI ChatGPT DeepSeek: The Financial Times reports that SoftBank is in talks to invest up to $25 billion in OpenAI as part of a larger deal that could see the Japanese conglomerate spend more than $40 billion on AI initiatives with the Microsoft-backed business.
According to the source:
The possible investment would make SoftBank OpenAI’s single largest investor, surpassing Microsoft, who invested in the ChatGPT creator in 2019. The agreement comes after both businesses revealed last week that they will spend $100 billion in Stargate, OpenAI’s U.S. data center project that may grow to $500 billion over four years.
SoftBank intends to invest $15 billion to $25 billion directly in OpenAI. In addition to its $15 billion Stargate commitment, according to the article. OpenAI would invest roughly $15 billion in Stargate, and SoftBank‘s equity investment could fund OpenAI‘s infrastructure commitment.
The discussions take place at a time when Chinese business DeepSeek‘s publication of its R1 “reasoning” model. Which was constructed on a relatively low budget, shook public markets this week.
Nvidia, the chip giant, lost up to $589 billion in a single day before recovering slightly. As investors fretted that large investments in expensive. AI gear would be unnecessary if companies could get equivalent results with fewer resources.
OpenAI stated earlier this week that it had discovered evidence that DeepSeek exploited OpenAI’s proprietary models to train R1 and other models using a technique known as “distillation,” which allows developers to achieve equivalent performance with smaller models at a far cheaper cost. The corporation claims that this would violate its terms of service, which prohibit using outputs to create competitor models.
The transaction between OpenAI and SoftBank, which according to the Financial Times has not been finalized. Is SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son’s largest gamble since investing $16 billion in WeWork. It would also diminish OpenAI’s reliance on Microsoft for computing resources, as Microsoft recently agreed to relinquish its role as OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider.
According to the study, around 20% of Stargate’s capital will be in the form of equity. With the remaining secured by debt against assets and cash flow. OpenAI, which was valued at $157 billion last year is also negotiating to become a for-profit corporation to allow for additional fundraising, OpenAI ChatGPT DeepSeek.
