SoftBank to Invest $25 Billion on OpenAI Ahead of Stargate

OpenAI, one of the biggest artificial intelligence companies in the world, has long been in a money-raising frenzy. Now, it is in talks with SoftBank, a Japanese conglomerate, to raise around $25 billion, as per three people familiar with the development.

This money might cover OpenAI’s commitment to the $100 billion data center project Stargate, which the White House announced last week. However, it is worth noting that the money will be separate from SoftBank’s investment in the project itself. This is a separate deal between just two entities: OpenAI and SoftBank. 

The Stargate is a collaboration between three industry leaders: Oracle, OpenAI, and SoftBank. They announced that this initiative will lead to a $500 billion investment in computing infrastructure and data center enhancement. OpenAI is set to take a prominent role in the project, given its position as a global leader in AI technology. 

However, this moniker of OpenAI as the best AI company in the world was in jeopardy just a week ago when a Chinese AI model, DeepSeek, shocked the tech industry by releasing AI models that could rival that of America, that too at a significantly lower price and tech requirements. 

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Since the Chinese DeepSeek has demonstrated that it could build an affordable AI model, there have been questions about the sanity of the idea of pouring almost half a trillion dollars into new data centers. However, many experts believe that copious amounts of computing power will continue to provide companies like OpenAI a competitive edge over others in the market.