SoftBank wants to invest up to $30 billion more in developer ChatGPT. Will the bet pay off

Japanese investment and technology holding SoftBank Group is in talks to make an additional investment in ChatGPT developer OpenAI for up to $30 billion, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and Reuters reported, citing sources.

The deal could be part of a massive funding round in which OpenAI plans to raise up to $100 billion, Reuters notes. In this case, the ChatGPT developer's valuation could reach about $830 billion. OpenAI is in search of capital amid soaring costs and increasing competition from Google. And SoftBank, which is already one of the largest shareholders of OpenAI (the company already owns 11% of shares of the ChatGPT developer), thus can strengthen its bet on the AI-giant, writes WSJ.

SoftBank shares rose 3.7% in Tokyo trading on Jan. 28.

OpenAI needs significant funding to continue developing AI models, pay for large-scale computing power and retain top researchers amid increasing competition from Google and Gemini, Reuters notes.

The company, which is considering an initial public offering, also plans to raise capital from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds and other venture capital funds. OpenAI's current investors include Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures and MGX, a UAE-based fund, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Last December, SoftBank increased its stake in OpenAI to 11% after investing $22.5 billion in the company. Then SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son said that the Japanese holding company "deeply shares the vision of OpenAI," WSJ recalls. To finance this investment, SoftBank sold its stake in chip maker Nvidia for $5.8 billion. Reuters wrote that Son was on a tight deadline to raise funds to invest in OpenAI, because of which most of the other deals of the SoftBank Vision Fund investment fund were actually put on pause.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor