TOKYO — SoftBank Group has completed a landmark $41 billion investment in OpenAI, securing an 11% stake in the creator of ChatGPT. This transaction, one of the largest private funding rounds in history, underscores Chief Executive Masayoshi Son’s “all-in” strategy to dominate the artificial intelligence sector and its supporting infrastructure.
The capital injection was finalized in stages, including a $7.5 billion contribution in April followed by an additional $22.5 billion this past Wednesday. Furthermore, SoftBank facilitated an $11 billion syndicated co-investment from other backers. The deal originally valued OpenAI at $300 billion, though subsequent secondary stock sales in October have already pushed the company’s valuation toward $500 billion.
This move coincides with SoftBank’s broader aggressive expansion, including a recent $4 billion acquisition of digital infrastructure investor DigitalBridge Group. SoftBank is also a key backer of “Stargate,” a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar data center initiative led by OpenAI and Oracle designed to power next-generation AI models.
The Architecture of Intelligence: SoftBank’s Strategic Gambit
The completion of SoftBank’s $41 billion investment in OpenAI represents more than a mere financial transaction; it signifies a pivotal shift in the global technological hierarchy. By securing an 11% stake in the world’s leading generative AI firm, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son is positioning his conglomerate as the primary architect of the “AI era.” This “all-in” approach reflects a calculated bet that AI will serve as the central axis for all future economic activity.
To capitalize on this, SoftBank is not just funding software but is aggressively financing the physical “bricks and mortar” of the digital age. The concurrent $4 billion acquisition of DigitalBridge Group and the participation in the “Stargate” data center project illustrate this holistic strategy. “Stargate” serves as a prime example of the unprecedented scale of current AI ambitions—a project so vast it requires the combined resources of OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank to build the specialized computing environments necessary for future models.
This surge in spending reflects a broader industry trend where the world’s largest companies are reshaping their balance sheets to avoid obsolescence. As AI models require exponentially more power and data, the winners will likely be those who control both the intellectual property of the models and the physical infrastructure—the chips and data centers—that allow them to function.
