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SoftBank plans to purchase as much as $1.5 billion in OpenAI shares to strengthen its position within the $150 billion artificial intelligence company, as Masayoshi Son seeks to position the Japanese group as a pacesetter for to position artificial intelligence.
SoftBank will buy the shares through a young offer, a mechanism that permits current and former OpenAI employees who’ve held their shares for greater than two years to sell them, in response to two people accustomed to the situation. The deal is anticipated to shut early next yr.
The tender offer, first reported by CNBC, values ​​worker shares in keeping with OpenAI's latest funding round, which closed last month. This $6.6 billion fundraising valued the corporate at $150 billion.
SoftBank's second Vision Fund, its tech-heavy investment vehicle, invested $500 million in the corporate on this round. The same fund wherein Son has a major stake can also be buying $1.5 billion value of stocks.
AI startups have raised tens of billions of dollars in debt and equity this yr as investors look beyond eye-popping valuations for loss-making firms to bet on the technology.
Elon Musk is anticipated to shut a $5 billion funding round for his AI startup xAI this week, valuing last yr's group at $45 billion, while OpenAI's valuation has nearly doubled this yr has doubled. Last week, rival Anthropic received a second $4 billion investment from Amazon.
Son has publicly expressed his admiration for Sam Altman and said that he speaks with the CEO of OpenAI regularly. The tech investor is looking for a bigger stake in the corporate, in response to people accustomed to the matter.
SoftBank's additional investment makes the corporate considered one of OpenAI's largest backers, alongside Josh Kushner's Thrive Capital, which has injected greater than $1 billion into the group. Tiger Global, Altimeter Capital, Coatue Management and Abu Dhabi-based technology investment firm MGX have also made significant bets on the corporate.
Microsoft, OpenAI's fundamental partner, has invested greater than $13 billion.
Son is currently attempting to implement an ambitious AI plan to place his company at the middle of artificial intelligence developments.
“This is what I used to be born to do, to make ASI (artificial superintelligence) a reality,” Son said earlier this yr.
The group is almost all owner of Arm Holdings, the UK-based chip designer that has benefited from the AI ​​boom and is central to Son's AI ambitions.
SoftBank and OpenAI declined to comment.
