OpenAI was founded in December 2015 as a non-profit AI research lab.
Japanese multinational investment company SoftBank has completed an additional investment of $22.5 billion in OpenAI at the second closing of the company’s investment of up to $40 billion committed on 31 March, 2025.
As a result, SoftBank says it has fully satisfied its commitment to invest in OpenAI under its March 2025 commitment, alongside the participation of third-party co-investors.
The company’s aggregate ownership interest in ChatGPT developer OpenAI is now approximately 11%.
The announcement comes as the generative artificial intelligence market is intensifying following the launch of the Chinese-based platform DeepSeek-R1 language model.
The Chinese model has garnered attention for its performance and cost-effectiveness, challenging established players like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
SoftBank completed the first closing in April 2025, investing $7.5 billion through SoftBank Vision Fund 2 (SVF2), and has now completed an additional investment of $22.5 billion at the second closing, also through SVF2.
Together with an oversubscribed and upsized participation of $11 billion from other third-party co-investors, SoftBank says the final aggregate commitment of $41 billion has now been fully funded.
Masayoshi Son, chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group,says: “We are deeply aligned with OpenAI’s vision of ensuring AGI [artificial general intelligence] benefits all of humanity.”
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI says: “SoftBank saw the potential of AI early and committed with a deep belief in its impact on humanity. Their global leadership and scale help us move faster and bring advanced intelligence to the world.”
