CNBC's David Faber discusses SoftBank's investment in OpenAI.

The release of Open AI's ChatGPT has accelerated the development of artificial intelligence and warnings about its impact on society.

Rise of AI

SoftBank has fully funded its previously announced $40 billion commitment to OpenAI, according to sources familiar with the matter. This investment, made at a pre-money valuation of $260 billion, raises SoftBank's ownership stake in OpenAI to over 10%, while Microsoft remains the largest shareholder with about 27%.

The funding is part of a broader trend of significant capital being raised to support OpenAI's ambitious AI data center build-out, with the company planning for $1.4 trillion in compute costs over the next eight years. The SoftBank investment is distinct from the Stargate project, a separate $500 billion initiative involving OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle.

SoftBank fully funded OpenAI commitment of $40 billion: sources

Yesterday, we were discussing SoftBank's acquisition of Digital Bridge, and I brought up OpenAI, of course, which we continue to focus on, which is in the market, it would seem, for raising as much as $100 billion, perhaps at a valuation, according to reports—I haven't confirmed this—at $750 billion value for OpenAI, such an important company, but a private company, of course. Yesterday, I was sort of musing aloud, or at least questioning, saying, where was SoftBank in terms of the $40 billion, last—let's call it March 31st, early April, when they said, we're going to invest $40 billion in OpenAI, the pre-money valuation, $260 billion. And I cannot tell you, according to sources who are familiar with the situation, they funded the entire amount. $10 billion was syndicated. And then, they had already invested another $8 billion or so, but my understanding now is about $22 or $22.5 billion was sent over last week. And so, SoftBank has made good on its $40 billion commitment to OpenAI, again, announced early last year—let's call it right at the beginning of the second quarter of last year—at a $260 billion value. By the way, the money looks pretty good right now. It's going to take SoftBank's ownership north of 10 percent. I don't have the exact numbers for you. To put it in perspective, of course, the initial benefactor of OpenAI, Microsoft, under their new cap structure, will loan or still loans around 27 percent of the company. But SoftBank, a very significant owner of OpenAI, and again, has made good, I am told by sources familiar, on that full $40 billion commitment, Sarah. And we talked about the fact that because OpenAI is not a public company, there are various ways to try to play it, so to speak, and SoftBank certainly has been one of them, given the importance that investment now has to SoftBank's future. I think it just highlights just how much money and how much scrambling there's been to get the money to fund this very ambitious AI build-out of data centers. Just yesterday, we were reporting that SoftBank spent, you know, spending $4 billion to buy a data center. Yeah, on Digital Bridge. A data center company where leases are already in place, but conceivably it will allow them to have, you know, future compute capacity as well. I know, I mean, I'm looking through my OpenAI file, which you were remarking on before. It's just very large. Yes, it is. It's only getting bigger. I was just wondering, we didn't have, we don't have that much news today. No, but more and more things get put in here. But I guess that's why I'm accumulating. But, you know, the debt, obviously, OpenAI is using to help fund it, their $1.4 trillion of compute costs, let's call it, over the next eight years that they've committed to at OpenAI. So that's the key, in many ways, in the market, really, in terms of, A, will they be able to raise it all using other balance sheets, and clearly, because they, you know, you need Oracle's balance sheet, you need Microsoft's balance sheet, you need something, you need so many to do that. Obviously, you've got the Stargate project, kind of separate but related, being built as well for a lot. It will go on and on. It's the $500 billion initiative by OpenAI, by SoftBank, by Oracle. And I think it's MGX, or one of the, yeah. Is this part of that? Yeah. This is all part of it? This money went directly into OpenAI. This was direct to OpenAI, separate from Stargate.

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SoftBank fully funded OpenAI commitment of $40 billion: sources

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