Japan’s SoftBank Earmarks Up to $25 Billion for OpenAI: Report

SoftBank is in talks to inject up to $25 billion directly into OpenAI, positioning the Japanese tech conglomerate to become the ChatGPT maker’s largest financial backer, according to initial reporting from the Financial Times on Wednesday evening.

If the deal goes through, the investment would eclipse Microsoft’s $13 billion stake and mark SoftBank’s most ambitious artificial intelligence bet to date.

Details of the deal between SoftBank and Open surfaced following a week of critical changes in the artificial intelligence sector.

Last week, SoftBank committed some $15 billion to Stargate, a $500 billion data center project involving OpenAI, Oracle, and investment firm MGX.

The project was announced by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Speaking from the White House, President Trump said that the project would “create over 100,000 American jobs,” with plans to build out data centers in Texas.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son will serve as chairman for the Stargate project.

The widening gyre

The massive capital injection signals a strategic pivot for OpenAI as it seeks to reduce its dependence on Microsoft’s computing infrastructure.

As part of the Stargate agreement, Microsoft agreed to relinquish its position as OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider, opening the door to partnerships with firms like Oracle.

These talks are “ongoing” although the amount of Softbank’s primary equity investments into OpenAI remains “a moving target,” the FT report indicates, quoting a person familiar with the matter who claimed that when combined, these investments could “exceed $40 billion.”

Roughly 20% of Stargate’s funding will come from equity, with the remainder financed through debt secured against its assets and future cash flows, according to people close to the discussions.

Such a structure mirrors traditional infrastructure project financing but at an unprecedented scale for the tech sector.

For SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son, the investment aligns with his vision of achieving “super-intelligence”—technology that surpasses human cognitive abilities.

Sources cited on initial reports indicate that Son has spent years courting OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, seeing the partnership as key to dominating next-generation AI infrastructure.

This timing proves crucial as OpenAI’s board negotiates to convert the company into a for-profit public benefit entity.

The AI firm has tapped Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon and advisory firm M. Klein & Co to help structure the transition, with legal counsel from Wachtell Lipton’s Andy Nussbaum.

OpenAI reached a $157 billion valuation last year after raising roughly $20 billion across multiple funding rounds, including SoftBank’s earlier $2 billion stake.

Debt-heavy dives

These efforts at transition and scaling from major AI firms are underway as Chinese firm DeepSeek rocked headlines over the past week, arguably demonstrating that sophisticated AI models can be built on relatively modest budgets.

“Beyond model efficiency, proprietary data and real-world applications will ultimately define sustained leadership—favoring those with the resources to scale AI across industries,” Jack Tan, co-founder of crypto exchange WOO X, told Decrypt.

Tan, whose firm has investments in AI for high-frequency trading through its partnership with AI-powered Web3 search engine Kaito, suggested that the long-term race for AI dominance will favor organizations with substantial infrastructure.

The arrival of DeepSeek “challenged the assumption that Stargate’s hyperscale compute is essential, as small node operators could reduce reliance on it,” Tan told Decrypt.

However, the SoftBank-OpenAI deal’s debt-heavy structure, leveraged at 80%, is reminiscent of its investment in coworking space firm WeWork.

If completed, the investment would dwarf SoftBank’s infamous $16 billion bet on WeWork.

OpenAI and SoftBank did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comments on their negotiations.