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The Japanese telecommunications company, alongside a group of investors, has recently announced yet another funding round that could inject an additional $40 billion into OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.
SoftBank will contribute an initial $10 billion and has committed to invest another $20 billion if OpenAI successfully transitions from a non-profit to a for-profit organization by the end of 2025.
However, if OpenAI fails to achieve this, SoftBank will scale down its second investment to only $10 billion.
The Financial Times reported that the remaining $10 billion will come from investors that include OpenAI supporter Microsoft, along with investment firms Coatue Management, Altimeter Capital, and Thrive Capital.
If all goes as planned with this funding round, OpenAI's valuation would soar to an impressive $300 billion, positioning it 28th on the S&P 500—above Chevron, the oil giant, and close to T-Mobile US. OpenAI’s valuation has also nearly doubled since the $6.6 billion funding round in October.
While it’s difficult to ascertain the details without reviewing OpenAI’s financials, this investment would likely make SoftBank the largest single investor in OpenAI, surpassing Microsoft's total backing of $13 billion to date.
This news further validates speculation from late January regarding SoftBank's potential investment in OpenAI, although initial sources inaccurately estimated the amount to be around $25 billion.
OpenAI stated that this funding will allow them to "advance the frontiers of AI research, enhance our computing infrastructure, and provide increasingly powerful tools for the 500 million users who access ChatGPT every week."
"We’re thrilled to collaborate with the SoftBank Group; few companies have a better understanding of scaling transformative technology," it added.
"Their support will help us in developing AI systems that foster scientific discovery, enable personalized education, enhance human creativity, and pave the way towards AGI (artificial general intelligence) that serves the interests of all humanity."
This initiative represents a welcome shift from issues like deepfakes and intellectual property violations. The recent debate has highlighted how OpenAI’s image-generation technology can reinterpret images in the style of the cherished Japanese animation studio, Studio Ghibli (which we used to create the illustrative image above).
Critics of AI-generated art responded by recalling a past comment from Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki, who in 2016 expressed his disgust towards AI art, calling it "an insult to life." It is perplexing that a technology with such potential for humanity has been largely reduced to trivial Internet fads.
Despite OpenAI's notable challenges, SoftBank remains dedicated to its AGI/ASI objectives. Besides investing directly in OpenAI, both the telecommunications company and OpenAI are founding partners of the Stargate Project, which aims to raise an extraordinary $500 billion for expanding AI infrastructure in the United States.
Additionally, in February, SoftBank and OpenAI announced plans for an AI joint venture named Cristal Intelligence, designed to cater to the Japanese enterprise market.
