At a post-money valuation of $300 billion, OpenAI Global, LLC, an artificial intelligence (AI) research and development firm based in the United States, announced a new $40 billion funding round led by Softbank.
The funding allows OpenAI to scale its compute infrastructure, push the boundaries of AI research even further, and provide more potent tools for the 500 million users who use ChatGPT each week, the company said in a statement on Monday.
“We’re excited to be working in partnership with SoftBank Group — few companies understand how to scale transformative technology like they do,
“Their support will help us continue building AI systems that drive scientific discovery, enable personalized education, enhance human creativity, and pave the way toward AGI that benefits all of humanity,” OpenAI said.
Softbank said in a different statement that it had reached a final deal with OpenAI and its affiliates to make up to $40 billion in follow-on investments.
Of the potential $40 billion investment, Softbank intends to syndicate out $10 billion to other investors.
Consequently, up to $30 billion is anticipated to be the bank’s effective investment amount.
Softbank stated that its cash position and loan-to-value (LTV) financial policies have not changed.
According to Softbank, the “information revolution” has moved from personal computers, the Internet, and broadband to smartphones, and it is now in a new stage driven by artificial intelligence.
The bank has stated that its goal is to develop artificial super intelligence (ASI) for the benefit of humankind.
Softbank acknowledged OpenAI as the partner that is most likely to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI), citing this as a significant turning point in the development of ASI and its goal of making sure that AGI serves the interests of all people.
Since September 2024, the bank has made $2.2 billion in total investments through SoftBank Vision Fund 2, positioning OpenAI as its most significant partner.
The statement claims that massive computing power is necessary to achieve AGI and ASI, and that the development of OpenAI’s AI models is crucial.
In order to achieve this, Softbank and OpenAI announced the “Stargate Project” on January 21, 2025, which aims to construct specialized AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the US.
