--- title: "EXCLUSIVE-SoftBank races to fulfill $22.5 billion funding commitment to OpenAI by year-end, sources say" description: "SoftBank is racing to fulfill a $22.5 billion funding commitment to OpenAI by year-end. The company has sold stakes in Nvidia and T-Mobile, delayed the IPO of its payments app PayPay, and may use undr" type: "news" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/270466781.md" published_at: "2025-12-22T09:00:00.000Z" --- # EXCLUSIVE-SoftBank races to fulfill $22.5 billion funding commitment to OpenAI by year-end, sources say > SoftBank is racing to fulfill a $22.5 billion funding commitment to OpenAI by year-end. The company has sold stakes in Nvidia and T-Mobile, delayed the IPO of its payments app PayPay, and may use undrawn margin loans backed by Arm shares. OpenAI needs the funds for AI data center projects amid rising competition. SoftBank's CEO Masayoshi Son is focusing on this deal to improve the firm's position in AI. The funding is expected to be completed by the end of 2025. (Repeats story first published on Friday.) SoftBank has sold Nvidia, T-Mobile stakes to fund OpenAI commitment SoftBank could tap undrawn margin loan backed by Arm shares IPO of SoftBank payments app PayPay is delayed until Q1 2026 due to US government shutdown, sources say OpenAI needs funds for AI data center projects amid rising competition By Echo Wang, Miho Uranaka and Krystal Hu NEW YORK/TOKYO/SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 19 (Reuters) - S oftBank Group (9984.T) is racing to close a $22.5 billion funding commitment to OpenAI by year-end through an array of cash-raising schemes, including a sale of some investments, and could tap its undrawn margin loans borrowed against its valuable ownership in chip firm Arm Holdings (ARM.O) , sources said. The “all-in” bet on OpenAI is among the biggest yet by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, as the Japanese billionaire seeks to improve his firm’s position in the race for artificial intelligence. To come up with the money, Son has already sold SoftBank’s entire $5.8 billion stake in AI chip leader Nvidia (NVDA.O) , offloaded $4.8 billion of its T-Mobile US (TMUS.O) stake, and slashed staff. Son has slowed most other dealmaking at SoftBank’s Vision Fund to a crawl, and any deal above $50 million now requires his explicit approval, two of the sources told Reuters. Son’s firm is working to take public its payments app operator, PayPay. The initial public offering, originally expected this month, was pushed back due to the 43-day-long U.S. government shutdown, which ended in November. PayPay’s market debut, likely to raise more than $20 billion, is now expected in the first quarter of next year, according to one direct source and another person familiar with the efforts. The Japanese conglomerate is also looking to cash out some of its holdings in Didi Global (92Sy.D) , the operator of China’s dominant ride-hailing platform, which is looking to list its shares in Hong Kong after a regulatory crackdown forced it to delist in the U.S. in 2021, a source with direct knowledge said. Investment managers at SoftBank’s Vision Fund are being directed toward the OpenAI deal, two of the above sources said. SoftBank’s scramble to marshal funds offers a window into the strain faced even by the world’s biggest dealmakers as they scramble to finance ambitious AI data center projects worth hundreds of billions of dollars. SoftBank declined to comment. ### SOFTBANK HAS OPTIONS OpenAI has not yet received the remaining funding, but expects the money to come in by the end of 2025, as stipulated in the contract, sources said. SoftBank has multiple sources of capital it could tap, including margin loans, cash on its balance sheet, stakes in listed companies, and corporate bonds or bridge loans, sources said. Son has strong reasons to draw on a range of funding mechanisms to fulfill those obligations. SoftBank secured a deal to invest in OpenAI at a $300 billion valuation in April. Since then, the valuation of OpenAI has risen dramatically and the company is in talks to raise additional funding from investors, including Amazon (AMZN.O) , tripling its valuation to close to $900 billion, one of the sources added, which would give SoftBank a significant paper gain once the transaction is completed. A major pool of capital for SoftBank is its undrawn capacity of margin loans borrowed against its ownership of British semiconductor and software design company Arm Holdings (O9Ty.F) . SoftBank recently expanded its margin loan capacity by $6.5 billion, bringing the total undrawn capacity to $11.5 billion. Arm’s stock has since tripled from its IPO price, providing SoftBank with additional collateral headroom to expand its borrowing capacity. SoftBank reported parent-level cash of 4.2 trillion yen ($27.16 billion) as of September 30. The group still owns about 4% of T-Mobile US, remaining the wireless carrier’s second-largest shareholder, a stake worth roughly $11 billion at the end of September, according to LSEG data. Despite investing at a less active pace, it has continued to back AI startups such as Sierra and Skild AI. OPENAI NEEDS THE MONEY Both OpenAI and SoftBank are investors in Stargate, a $500 billion initiative to build AI data centers for training and inference that executives say is crucial to the U.S. government’s ambitions to keep ahead of China in AI. The rush to build data centers has also prompted tech giants including Meta Platforms (META.O) to commit unprecedented sums to these buildouts - which need chips, power, cooling, and servers - and they have brought in deep-pocketed partners to spread the risk. Their hefty capital outlays have sparked concerns about what happens if the investments fail to bring commensurate returns, raising the specter of an “AI bubble” bursting. SoftBank promised in April to invest up to $30 billion in OpenAI - $10 billion of which the startup would receive the same month. The rest of the payment was contingent on the AI startup transitioning to a for-profit corporation by the end of the year, an ambitious feat that OpenAI achieved in October. The new funding is crucial for covering OpenAI’s rising costs to train and run its AI models as competition from Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Google ratchets up. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees recently that the company is now entering a “code red” phase to improve ChatGPT — delaying other product rollouts to fend off the momentum behind Google’s Gemini. In October, Altman said OpenAI aimed to build 30 gigawatts of computing capacity for $1.4 trillion. He said he ultimately wants OpenAI to add 1 gigawatt of compute every week - an enormous target given that each gigawatt currently comes with a capital cost of more than $40 billion. ### Related Stocks - [OpenAI.NA - OpenAI](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/OpenAI.NA.md) ## Related News & Research | Title | Description | URL | |-------|-------------|-----| | AI 巨頭競爭愈演愈烈 OpenAI 及 Anthropic 掌舵人印度峯會拒牽手 | 在印度新德裡舉行的人工智慧高峰會上，OpenAI 執行長 Sam Altman 與 Anthropic 執行長 Dario Amodei 拒絕牽手，展現出兩家公司之間的競爭。Altman 表示沒有牽手並非故意，而是拍攝過程中的混亂。兩家公司 | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/276408352.md) | | 南韓三大電視台據報起訴 OpenAI 斥未經許可使用新聞內容 | 韓國三大電視台 KBS、MBC 及 SBS 向首爾中央地方法院起訴 OpenAI，指控其在訓練 ChatGPT 時未經許可使用新聞內容，要求賠償並禁止繼續使用。此舉為全球 AI 企業首次面臨此類訴訟，涉及智慧財產權和韓國數據主權問題。廣播播 | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/276583975.md) | | 阿特曼出席 AI 峯會 強調全球亟需監管措施 | 阿特曼在 AI 全球峯會上強調，全球亟需對快速發展的人工智慧技術進行監管。他指出，AI 的民主化是人類繁榮發展的關鍵，集中技術於單一公司或國家可能導致災難。他呼籲建立類似國際原子能總署的組織，以協調 AI 事務並應對新出現的問題，如失業和網 | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/276395979.md) | | 印度頂級電信公司通過 1100 億美元的建設計劃和已驗證的快速市場主導策略來應對人工智能 | 印度最大的電信公司，信實 Jio，計劃在七年內投資 1100 億美元用於人工智能基礎設施，以提升其服務，利用其市場主導地位。Jio 目前擁有 5.14 億用户，佔印度移動市場的 51%，旨在降低人工智能成本，類似於其在移動數據定價方面的轉變 | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/276406785.md) | | OpenAI 夥麥肯錫等諮詢巨企攻企業市場 加快部署及建立 AI 代理 | OpenAI 宣佈與埃森哲、波士頓諮詢、凱捷及麥肯錫等四家諮詢公司建立合作夥伴關係，共同推廣企業平台 Frontier。該平台旨在整合企業內部系統與數據，幫助企業更有效地管理和部署 AI 代理。諮詢公司將協助客户制定策略，加速 AI 的實際 | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/276709378.md) | --- > **Disclaimer**: This article is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice.