SoftBank in Talks To Invest Up To $25 Billion in OpenAI (ft.com) 18
An anonymous reader shares a report: SoftBank is in talks to invest as much as $25 billion into OpenAI [non-paywalled source], in a deal that would make it the ChatGPT maker's biggest financial backer, as the pair partner on a huge new artificial intelligence infrastructure project.
The two companies announced last week they would lead a joint venture that would spend $100 billion on Stargate -- a sprawling data centre project touted by US President Donald Trump -- with the figure rising to as much as $500 billion over the next four years.
SoftBank is in talks to invest $15 billion to $25 billion directly into OpenAI on top of its commitment of more than $15 billion to Stargate, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the negotiations.
The two companies announced last week they would lead a joint venture that would spend $100 billion on Stargate -- a sprawling data centre project touted by US President Donald Trump -- with the figure rising to as much as $500 billion over the next four years.
SoftBank is in talks to invest $15 billion to $25 billion directly into OpenAI on top of its commitment of more than $15 billion to Stargate, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the negotiations.
SoftBank? AI is officially dead now (Score:4, Insightful)
SoftBank deciding to go all in was the final evidence needed to prove the AI bubble has burst.
Maybe they can use AI to pick their next investment. Maybe they can put 10 billion into a startup run by a fraudster which has huge long term costs to rent out office space and then re-rents space back out to flakey 2 man startups on a short term basis. What could possibly go wrong?
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Run away (Score:3)
the top is in folks, its all downhill from here
The Scam Lives On! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Scam Lives On! (Score:5, Insightful)
Despite DeepSeek having pulled the rug out from under OpenAI, SoftBank and the current admin are going to plow ahead with plans to spend enormous amounts of taxpayer cash on what are now obsolete technologies. It's comparable to making a huge public investment in the Fourier Transform after James Cooley and John Tukey developed the general Fast Fourier Transform.
Honestly, at this point it's about making sure plenty of cash makes it into the C*O's pockets before the bubble's remnants dissipate into nothing. They created a scam and they feel they deserve to be well rewarded for it.
What a shit-show.
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Wish I still had mod points left. Insightful indeed :)
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Why let a reality update interfere with a solid plan to steal from the public? What we need now is a CRISIS!
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Despite DeepSeek having pulled the rug out from under OpenAI
It's not clear that this has happened. We have no evidence that the training was actually accomplished in a reduced time. The model isn't OSS so nobody can independently confirm that. We only have the market reacting to news in the way that it does because investors react on speculation before they have facts.
Fact: It is claimed that DeepSeek has reduced training time.
Fact: There is no independent verification of this claim.
Fact: Investors are reacting as if the claim were factual.
Speculative Facts: This di
Exciting! (Score:2)
There hasn't been this much industry excitement since the invention of the bubble sort and Bresenham's line algorithm.
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There hasn't been this much industry excitement since the invention of the bubble sort and Bresenham's line algorithm.
Adding color graphics codes to Basic was a big moment too.
If SoftBank is getting in... (Score:2)
If SoftBank is getting in, it's time to get out.
How do they even have $25B left after being the "greater fool" to so many other losing speculative investments?
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How do they even have $25B left...
Oh I don't know. Maybe by owning 29% of Alibaba? 90% of ARM? And a bunch of other solid performers. Maybe get yourself a clue.
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People here don't seem to realise that SoftBank has been very successful with a lot of their investments over the past few decades. Getting in on AliBaba early was one of their best bets. They also did really well buying Vodafone Japan and transforming it into SoftBank Mobile. Only their riskiest investments make the news. You never hear about their boring, safe investments.
Wrong approach (Score:2)
Re: Wrong approach (Score:2)
and to obey the Asimov's three laws of Robotics.