SoftBank is racing to fulfill a $22.5 billion funding commitment to OpenAI by year-end — one of the largest single AI investments ever — underscoring both the conviction and the financial strain behind the global AI arms race.
To raise the capital, SoftBank Group has already:
- Sold its entire Nvidia stake
- Reduced holdings in T-Mobile US
- Slashed costs and slowed new Vision Fund deals
- Prepared the IPO of PayPay
- Considered tapping margin loans backed by its stake in Arm Holdings
At the center of this push is Masayoshi Son’s most aggressive “all-in” AI bet to date.
Why this matters:
- 💰 OpenAI’s valuation has surged from $300B to potentially $900B, creating massive paper upside
- 🏗️ AI now demands infrastructure-scale capital — data centers, power, chips, cooling
- ⚠️ Even the world’s largest investors are stretching balance sheets to keep pace
Both SoftBank and OpenAI are cornerstone backers of Stargate, the $500B U.S. AI data-center initiative. OpenAI alone targets 30GW of compute capacity — a build-out measured in trillions, not billions.
This is no longer a venture story.
It’s a sovereign-scale capital allocation problem.
The key question for markets:
👉 Do AI returns ultimately justify the unprecedented leverage, asset sales, and balance-sheet risk now being deployed?
Conviction is high.
So is concentration risk.