Tags: SoftBank

The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI fell short of internal revenue and user‑growth goals, including a target of one billion weekly ChatGPT users by the end of 2025. The company dismissed the story as "clickbait" and said its business is "firing on all cylinders," but investors reacted sharply. Shares of Oracle, CoreWeave, SoftBank and several chip makers dropped between 5% and 10% as the market reassessed the massive compute spending commitments tied to OpenAI's projected revenue growth. Read more

OpenAI announced the close of a $122 billion funding round that lifts its post‑money valuation to $852 billion. The round adds $3 billion from retail investors and includes major strategic backers such as Amazon, Nvidia, SoftBank and Microsoft. The company reported $2 billion in monthly revenue and 900 million weekly active users, but remains unprofitable and is scaling back experimental projects like the Sora video app. CEO Sam Altman now faces pressure to justify the valuation as the firm pivots toward practical, revenue‑generating AI products. Read more

SoftBank has obtained an unsecured $40 billion loan to help finance its $30 billion commitment to invest in OpenAI, part of the AI firm’s record‑breaking $110 billion fundraising round. The loan, provided by JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and four Japanese banks, carries a 12‑month term that must be repaid or refinanced by next year. Analysts view the financing as a signal that lenders expect OpenAI’s anticipated public listing to occur later this year, which could provide SoftBank the liquidity needed to settle the debt. The new investment brings SoftBank’s total stake in OpenAI to over $60 billion. Read more

OpenAI announced that its chatbot ChatGPT now has more than 900 million weekly active users, up from 700 million earlier. The service also boasts more than 50 million consumer subscribers and a fourfold increase in business subscribers, reaching 9 million. The user base has more than doubled since February 2025, when it had 400 million users. Competitor Anthropic reported a 60% rise in free users and a doubling of paid subscribers. OpenAI also disclosed a scaled‑back investment from Nvidia and new contributions from SoftBank and Amazon. Read more

OpenAI announced that its ChatGPT chatbot has climbed to 900 million weekly active users, adding to a base of 50 million paying subscribers. The surge in user engagement coincided with a massive $110 billion private financing round, featuring major commitments from Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank. The new capital values the company at roughly $730 billion and underscores the rapid momentum of its subscription growth. OpenAI highlighted faster response times, higher reliability and stronger safety as the product scales, positioning ChatGPT as a leading tool for learning, writing, planning and building across a global audience. Read more

OpenAI announced a $110 billion private funding round, the largest ever, with Amazon contributing $50 billion, and Nvidia and SoftBank each adding $30 billion. The round values the company at a $730 billion pre‑money valuation and includes extensive cloud‑computing partnerships, notably a new stateful runtime environment on Amazon’s Bedrock platform and massive compute commitments from both Amazon and Nvidia. Part of Amazon’s investment is contingent on OpenAI achieving artificial general intelligence or completing an IPO, underscoring the high stakes of the deal. Read more

OpenAI is reportedly close to securing a funding round that could exceed $100 billion, pushing its valuation past $850 billion. The effort comes as the ChatGPT maker explores new revenue streams, including ads for free users, to offset high cash burn. Major investors such as Amazon, SoftBank, Nvidia and Microsoft are said to be involved in early tranches, with additional capital expected from venture firms and sovereign wealth funds. The deal would mark one of the largest tech financings in recent history. Read more

Skild AI, the robotics‑software startup founded in 2023, closed a $1.4 billion Series C financing round that pushes its valuation above $14 billion. The round was led by SoftBank with participation from Nvidia, Macquarie Group, 1789 Capital and others. The funding brings the company’s total capital raised to more than $2 billion. Skild AI develops general‑purpose foundation models for robots that can be retrofitted to many platforms and learn tasks by observing humans, aiming to cut the training burden that has limited robot adoption. Read more

Amazon is in advanced discussions with OpenAI about a $10 billion investment that would also see the AI startup adopt Amazon's Trainium chips and increase its use of Amazon Web Services. The proposed deal could lift OpenAI's valuation past $500 billion while deepening the company's reliance on Amazon's cloud and hardware infrastructure. At the same time, OpenAI continues to expand relationships with other technology partners, including Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle and AMD, prompting investors to scrutinize the circular nature of its financing and compute arrangements. Read more

SoftBank Group and Nvidia are reportedly negotiating a joint investment exceeding $1 billion in Skild AI, a robotics‑software startup valued at $14 billion. The company, which last raised $500 million at a $4.7 billion valuation, focuses on a robot‑agnostic foundation model rather than proprietary hardware. Skild AI recently unveiled its general‑purpose robot model, Skild Brain, and has secured partnerships with LG CNS and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The move reflects growing investor interest in AI‑driven robotics, following large funding rounds for peers such as Physical Intelligence, Figure, and 1X. Read more

Google’s AI infrastructure leader told employees the company must double its serving capacity every six months to keep up with soaring AI demand. Vice president Amin Vahdat outlined a goal to increase compute, storage and networking capability roughly a thousand‑fold in the next four to five years while maintaining cost and energy efficiency. The push comes amid intense competition, with rivals like OpenAI planning six new data centers and committing massive investment to support hundreds of millions of weekly users. Google’s challenge is to build faster, more reliable, and more scalable infrastructure than any competitor. Read more

Anthropic announced a $50 billion partnership with U.K.-based Fluidstack to build custom data centers in Texas and New York, slated for completion through 2026. The facilities are designed to support the compute‑intensive Claude models and reflect Anthropic’s push for dedicated infrastructure alongside existing cloud ties with Google and Amazon. The move positions Anthropic among rivals such as Meta and the SoftBank‑OpenAI‑Oracle consortium, whose infrastructure spending dwarfs the new project. Fluidstack, a rising neocloud provider, gains a high‑profile client and further credibility in the rapidly expanding AI‑hardware market. Read more

Major technology firms are committing unprecedented sums to AI‑related data center projects, with Oracle, SoftBank, Meta and others pledging hundreds of billions of dollars. While the scale of funding reflects optimism about AI growth, surveys show many companies remain cautious, and industry leaders warn that physical infrastructure—especially power and space—could become a bottleneck. The juxtaposition of massive financial commitments and lingering market uncertainty highlights the complex dynamics shaping the emerging AI ecosystem. Read more

SoftBank and OpenAI have launched a 50-50 joint venture called SB OAI Japan to localize and sell OpenAI's enterprise AI technologies to Japanese companies. The partnership’s first customer is SoftBank itself, which will deploy the new "Crystal intelligence" packaged solution across its businesses. SoftBank reports that all its employees are actively using AI and that it has created 2.5 million custom ChatGPT instances for internal use. The joint venture aims to combine OpenAI’s enterprise offerings with SoftBank’s local implementation and support, helping Japanese firms boost productivity and management efficiency. Read more

OpenAI announced a multi‑year agreement with Amazon to purchase $38 billion in cloud computing services. The partnership will see the company shift immediately to Amazon Web Services, with full capacity expected by the end of 2026 and the option to expand beyond 2027. The deal follows OpenAI’s recent restructuring that removed the need for Microsoft’s approval on such purchases and aligns with its broader plan to spend over $1 trillion on computing power in the next decade. Analysts note the massive spending may signal an emerging AI investment bubble. Read more

OpenAI announced the completion of its recapitalization, converting the organization into a public‑benefit corporation nested inside a non‑profit foundation. The new structure gives the OpenAI Foundation legal control while allowing the for‑profit arm to raise capital and acquire companies. Major stakeholders include Microsoft, SoftBank and OpenAI employees, with the foundation retaining a significant equity stake. State attorneys general reviewed the deal, and the company pledged to continue risk‑mitigation measures. CEO Sam Altman scheduled a public livestream to address questions about the transition. Read more

Mbodi, a robotics‑software startup founded by former Google engineers Xavier Chi and Sebastian Peralta, will showcase its cloud‑to‑edge system that uses multiple AI agents to train robots via natural‑language prompts at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 in San Francisco. The platform breaks down user requests into subtasks, enabling faster adaptation for tasks like picking and packaging. Mbodi, launched in 2024, previously won the ABB Robotics AI startup competition and partnered with a Swiss robotics firm later acquired by SoftBank. The company is now piloting the technology with a Fortune 100 consumer‑goods client and aims for broader deployment in 2026. Read more

Analysts note that the artificial‑intelligence sector is exhibiting the four hallmark factors of a technology bubble: deep uncertainty about profitable business models, a surge of pure‑play investments, a wave of novice retail investors, and a powerful narrative of inevitable transformation. Comparisons are drawn to historic bubbles in radio and aviation, while the dominance of Nvidia in the market and massive capital commitments from firms such as SoftBank, Microsoft and OpenAI underscore the scale of the hype. A recent MIT study found that most firms adopting generative AI have not yet profited, adding to concerns about sustainability. Read more

SoftBank is purchasing ABB’s robotics division for $5.4 billion, a move the company says will cement its focus on "Physical AI." Founder Masayoshi Son described the acquisition as a step toward a new frontier in artificial intelligence. The deal, which still requires regulatory approval, adds to SoftBank’s existing robotics holdings, including stakes in Skild, AutoStore Holdings and Agile Robots, and aligns with its broader investment strategy in chips, data centers, energy and generative AI technologies. Read more

OpenAI sold $6.6 billion worth of shares held by current and former employees, a transaction that lifted its valuation to $500 billion, the highest ever for a privately held firm. The sale, which involved investors such as SoftBank, Dragoneer Investment Group, Thrive Capital, MGX and T. Rowe Price, was not a traditional funding round because the proceeds went directly to shareholders. The move comes amid heightened competition with Meta’s AI lab, recent large‑scale funding rounds, and strategic partnerships with Oracle, Nvidia and Microsoft, while the company continues to roll out new products like the Sora 2 video model. Read more