SoftBank Group is exploring one of the largest single bets yet on generative artificial intelligence, with talks under way to inject as much as $30 billion into OpenAI, according to a person familiar with the discussions. The potential deal would deepen the relationship between one of the world’s most aggressive technology investors and the company behind ChatGPT at a moment when capital needs for advanced AI are exploding.
If completed at the upper end of the range, the investment would instantly rank among the biggest private financings in tech history and could reshape the balance of power in AI infrastructure and applications. It would also test how far investors are willing to go to fund a business model that depends on unprecedented spending on computing hardware and cloud capacity.
Inside the talks for up to $30 billion
The discussions center on SoftBank providing up to $30 billion in fresh capital to OpenAI, with structures still under negotiation and no final agreement in place, according to the source. Reporting on the negotiations describes SoftBank in active talks to commit as much as $30 billion more, a figure that would dwarf most late stage venture or growth equity rounds. Separate coverage notes that SoftBank is said to be weighing up to US$30 billion more in OpenAI, underscoring that the upper limit is a ceiling rather than a firm ticket size, and that the final amount could be lower depending on structure and co-investors.
People briefed on the matter say the negotiations are still fluid, with SoftBank examining different ways to stage or syndicate the capital. One account describes SoftBank Group in Talks to Invest Max USD30B More in OpenAI, characterizing the negotiations as a Rumor but emphasizing that the figure would be one of the largest single commitments SoftBank has ever contemplated for a private company. Another summary of Dow Jones Top Company Headlines highlights SoftBank in Talks to Invest Up to $30 Billion More in OpenAI, reinforcing that the initiative has become a marquee corporate story.
Masayoshi Son’s AI ambition and SoftBank’s strategy
For SoftBank’s founder and CEO, Masayoshi Son, the prospective deal is as much about legacy as it is about returns. Son has repeatedly framed artificial intelligence as the defining technology of the century, and recent reporting on the negotiations stresses that the move reflects the CEO’s ambitions to play a key role in developing artificial intelligence globally. By aligning SoftBank more closely with OpenAI, Son would be doubling down on a thesis that advanced models and the infrastructure behind them will underpin everything from consumer apps to industrial automation.
SoftBank has a long history of making concentrated, high conviction bets on platform companies, from early stakes in Alibaba to its Vision Fund era investments. The potential OpenAI deal fits that pattern, but at a scale that even by SoftBank standards is striking. Coverage describing SoftBank as weighing up to US$30 billion more in OpenAI frames the move as part of a broader strategy to regain momentum after a period of portfolio write downs, with the group again positioning itself as a kingmaker in frontier technology. One report characterizes the negotiations as weighing up to $30b more in OpenAI, a phrasing that underlines both the scale and the deliberation behind the move.
Why OpenAI needs unprecedented capital
OpenAI’s appetite for capital is driven by the staggering cost of training and serving large language models at global scale. Independent analysis of the company’s infrastructure roadmap describes OpenAI’s Trillion Infrastructure Spend, outlining a commitment to spending roughly $1 trillion on hardware and cloud infrastructure between 2025 and 2035. That projection breaks down expected Year by Year outlays, with detailed estimates for Annual Spending, COGS and Gross Margin, and it illustrates why even a $30 billion injection would cover only a slice of the long term bill.
In practical terms, that money goes into data centers packed with GPUs, custom accelerators, networking gear and the power and cooling systems to run them, as well as the cloud contracts that backstop global usage. A separate presentation of OpenAI’s hardware spending between 2025 and 2035 again highlights the scale of the planned infrastructure build out, reinforcing that the company’s business model is capital intensive in a way that resembles telecom or energy more than traditional software. Against that backdrop, SoftBank’s prospective capital looks less like an outlier and more like a down payment on a decade long expansion.
How the rumored structure could work
People familiar with the talks say SoftBank is exploring multiple ways to deploy the capital, including a mix of primary funding into OpenAI and potential secondary purchases from existing shareholders. One account describes SoftBank Group in Talks to Invest Max USD30B More in OpenAI, Rumor, and notes that the group may not raise the full amount on its own, hinting at possible syndication with partners or funds it manages. That would be consistent with SoftBank’s history of using vehicles like the Vision Fund to spread risk while retaining influence.
Another detailed summary of the situation points to SoftBank in Exclusive Talks to Invest Up to $30 Billion More in OpenAI, suggesting that the negotiations are being closely watched by other potential backers and by rivals in the AI ecosystem. A separate Dow Jones Top Company Headlines summary again flags SoftBank in Invest Up to $30 Billion More in OpenAI, Texas, Provided by Dow Jones, underscoring that the structure and final size of the deal remain key open questions for markets.
What it would mean for the AI race
If SoftBank proceeds at or near the top of the discussed range, the capital could accelerate OpenAI’s push to build and control more of the infrastructure stack behind its models. One analysis of OpenAI’s hardware roadmap, framed around a Year by Year Trillion Infrastructure Spend, suggests that owning or tightly controlling compute capacity is becoming a strategic moat. With additional billions, OpenAI could secure long term supply of advanced chips, expand its own data centers and potentially experiment with custom silicon, all of which would make it harder for smaller rivals to keep up.
The move would also reverberate across capital markets and among other AI players. A separate summary of SoftBank’s broader AI positioning notes that the group aims to be a worldwide leader in AI infrastructure and highlights a worldwide leader ambition, even though the specific figures in that report relate to a different AI investment context. In parallel, coverage of SoftBank in discussions to invest $30 billion more in OpenAI again stresses that the move reflects Masayoshi Son’s determination to shape the future of artificial intelligence, a signal that the competitive race in AI is increasingly being fought not only with algorithms but with balance sheets.
