In a massive escalation of his “all-in” artificial intelligence strategy, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son is reportedly in talks to invest up to an additional $30 billion in OpenAI.
News of the potential deal, first reported by the Wall Street Journal on January 27, 2026, indicates that this fresh capital would be part of a colossal $100 billion funding round aimed at valuing the ChatGPT creator at approximately $830 billion.
1. The “All-In” Strategy: Son’s Massive Wager
Masayoshi Son has spent the last year aggressively liquidating legacy assets to build a war chest specifically for OpenAI.
- The Valuation Jump: If successful, this round would nearly triple OpenAI’s valuation from its $300 billion mark in mid-2025 and significantly exceed the $500 billion valuation from a secondary share sale in October 2025.
- Current Stake: SoftBank already holds an estimated 11% stake in OpenAI following a combined $41 billion investment completed in December 2025.
- Funding the Deal: To free up the necessary capital, SoftBank has recently:
- Sold its entire stake in Nvidia.
- Trimmed its holdings in T-Mobile US.
- Paused a multi-billion dollar buyout of U.S. data center operator Switch Inc.
2. Strategic Rationale: The Infrastructure Race
The $100 billion OpenAI is seeking isn’t just for software; it’s to secure the physical backbone of the AI era.
| Project / Initiative | Strategic Importance |
| Stargate | A $500 billion joint venture between SoftBank and OpenAI to build massive AI data centers for training and inference. |
| SB Energy Partnership | OpenAI and SoftBank are each investing $500 million in SB Energy to build a 1.2-gigawatt data center in Milam County, Texas. |
| Compute Costs | OpenAI is grappling with astronomical costs to train its upcoming GPT-6 models while competing with Google’s Gemini. |
3. Market Impact and Credit Concerns
The news triggered an immediate reaction in the global financial markets:
- SoftBank Stock: Shares rose 5.8% in Tokyo on Wednesday (Jan 28) as investors cheered the company’s clear focus on the leading AI platform.
- Credit Warning: Despite the stock rally, S&P Global Ratings warned earlier this month that SoftBank’s creditworthiness is under pressure due to high debt levels (currently around $136 billion) and the volatility of its primary asset, Arm.
- Talent War: The capital injection is seen as vital for OpenAI to retain top researchers who are increasingly being headhunted by rivals like Anthropic and xAI.
Conclusion: A Treasury-Sized Chip on the Table
By weighing a $30 billion check, Masayoshi Son is moving beyond venture capital into the realm of sovereign-scale infrastructure funding. This move signals his belief that the ultimate winner of the AI race will be the entity that controls the most compute and the most advanced models. While SoftBank and OpenAI have officially declined to comment on the “fluid” discussions, the scale of the potential round suggests that OpenAI is preparing for a future that is as much about energy and hardware as it is about code.
