The Japanese investment company had originally aimed to secure a $10 billion margin loan backed by its OpenAI holdings.

However, discussions with banks and other potential lenders have recently shifted towards a smaller deal that could fall to about $6 billion, according to people familiar with the talks.

The loan is still under discussion and the final size could still change.

Lenders reportedly became cautious because OpenAI is privately owned, making it harder to determine a stable market value for the company.

Although OpenAI was recently valued at around $852 billion in a funding round earlier this year, creditors are wary about using unlisted shares as collateral for such a large borrowing arrangement.

A margin loan allows investors to borrow money against the value of assets they already own. In this case, SoftBank planned to use its OpenAI stake to secure the financing.

The proposed loan would run for two years, with an option to extend it by another year. Reports earlier this year also said the borrowing could carry an interest rate tied to SOFR plus 425 basis points, pushing costs close to 8%.

That is significantly higher than standard corporate lending rates and reflects the risks lenders see in the structure.

SoftBank has increased its financial exposure to OpenAI over the past two years. The company first invested in the ChatGPT maker in September 2024 and later expanded the partnership through Stargate, a large artificial intelligence infrastructure project launched in the United States in January 2025.

In March this year, SoftBank also secured a separate $40 billion bridge loan backed by major banks including JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs.

The company said the funding would support OpenAI investments and broader corporate operations.

Analysts estimate SoftBank’s total investment commitment to OpenAI could eventually reach about $64.6 billion, giving the group roughly a 13% in the company.

At the same time, some analysts believe SoftBank faces a financing gap of around $32 billion over the next two years.

To raise cash, the company has already sold several major assets. In 2025, SoftBank exited its Nvidia position for about $5.8 billion and also sold T-Mobile shares valued at roughly $12.7 billion.

Credit rating agency S&P recently revised SoftBank’s outlook to negative while keeping its BB+ rating, pointing to the company’s debt exposure and aggressive borrowing strategy.

Neither SoftBank nor OpenAI immediately responded to requests for comment following the latest reports on the loan discussions.

The venture, called The Deployment Company, brings together 19 investors, including TPG Inc., Brookfield Asset Management, Advent International and Bain Capital. SoftBank Group and Dragoneer Investment Group are also involved.

People with direct knowledge say the new company is valued at about $10 billion, not counting the new capital raised, while OpenAI will keep control of the business.

OpenAI wants its tools used inside more companies, not just tested. So it will place its engineers, who will help redesign workflows, automate routine tasks and ensure wider use of its software, directly within organisations backed by these investors.

This approach changes direction from simply selling access to software to focusing on hands-on deployment. It is closer to a service model, where companies pay not just for tools, but for implementation and ongoing support.

The investors backing the venture control more than 1,000 companies between them. That gives OpenAI a ready pipeline of clients without relying on long sales cycles. It also means faster rollout across sectors.

OpenAI has committed about $500 million upfront, with the option to increase that to $1 billion later. The rest of the funding will come from private equity firms over the next few years.

Interestingly, OpenAI is offering investors a 17.5% annual return, and if the venture doesn’t meet expectations, it will cover the gap, creating risk. On a $4 billion commitment, the shortfall could run into hundreds of millions each year if returns disappoint.

The development comes after Anthropic secured about $1.5 billion for a similar initiative. Its backers include Blackstone Inc., Goldman Sachs and Hellman & Friedman, who plan to deploy AI tools across their own investment portfolios.

Both companies are trying to prove that their technology can deliver value inside large organisations even as they move closer to potential public listings.

OpenAI is on track for about $30 billion in annual revenue this year, and at the same time, heavy spending on infrastructure could push losses as high as $14 billion.

The company disclosed the raise alongside updates on its growth, revenue, user base and partnerships with global investors and technology firms.

OpenAI said the round drew support from strategic partners including Amazon, NVIDIA and SoftBank, with continued backing from Microsoft. Other participants included firms such as Andreessen Horowitz, D. E. Shaw Ventures, TPG and T. Rowe Price Associates.

Part of the capital also came through bank channels, with more than $3 billion raised from individual investors.

OpenAI added that its shares will be included in exchange-traded funds managed by ARK Invest, expanding access to the company’s equity ahead of a potential public listing.

The company also expanded its revolving credit facility to about $4.7 billion, supported by a syndicate of global banks. OpenAI said the facility is still undrawn.

In its statement, OpenAI pointed to rapid growth in revenue and usage. It reported monthly revenue of $2 billion and weekly active users exceeding 900 million across consumer AI products, alongside more than 50 million subscribers.

The company said, “We are now generating $2B in revenue per month. At this stage, we are growing revenue four times faster than the companies who defined the Internet and mobile eras, including Alphabet and Meta.”

OpenAI also noted adoption across both consumer and enterprise segments. It said enterprise customers now account for more than 40% of revenue, with expectations that this could match consumer revenue by the end of 2026.

Usage across its tools is increasing, with the company reporting commendable engagement in search, which it said has nearly tripled over the past year. It also stated that its advertising pilot has generated more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue within six weeks of launch.

On the developer side, OpenAI said its APIs process over 15 billion tokens per minute, while its coding tool Codex now serves over 2 million weekly users, with usage rising quickly in recent months.

The firm also referenced its latest model, GPT-5.4, which it said is driving higher engagement across agent-based workflows and enterprise applications.

Compute capacity is foremost to its expansion. OpenAI said its infrastructure strategy now spans multiple cloud providers and chip partners, including Oracle, CoreWeave and Google Cloud on the cloud side, and additional hardware collaborations beyond its long-standing reliance on NVIDIA systems.

The company described its approach as building a wider infrastructure base to support demand, rather than depending on a single provider.

OpenAI also outlined its comprehensive product direction, referring to plans to integrate its tools into a unified AI system. It said it is working towards a combined platform that brings together ChatGPT, Codex, browsing and agent features into a single interface.

The company stated that its long-term aim is to make AI tools easier to use across both personal and workplace settings, while allowing developers and businesses to build on top of its systems.

OpenAI added that its growth shows a mix of consumer adoption, enterprise deployment, developer usage and compute capacity, which together support continued expansion of its products and services.

The $122 billion funding round is one of the largest private capital raises in the technology sector and enables OpenAI to scale further as it prepares for greater market developments.

The company, led by Masayoshi Son, is strengthening its focus on artificial intelligence as competition increases among global tech firms.

This is SoftBank’s largest borrowing in US dollars. The loan is unsecured and will mature in March 2027. It was arranged by major lenders including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Mizuho Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp and MUFG Bank.

SoftBank said the funds will partly support its existing commitment to OpenAI. The group had earlier agreed to invest $30 billion in the company through its Vision Fund 2. Some of the loan will also go towards general operations, with plans to repay part of it through asset sales.

After years of mixed results from large bets on companies like Uber and WeWork, Son is now focusing heavily on AI.

OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, has become one of the most influential players in the sector following the rapid adoption of ChatGPT. That surge has drawn fresh capital into the industry and raised the stakes for investors.

SoftBank is also working with OpenAI on the Stargate Project, an initiative announced in 2025 to invest up to $500 billion over four years in AI infrastructure in the United States.

Earlier, in December 2024, Son and then President-elect Donald Trump said SoftBank would invest $100 billion in AI and related infrastructure in the US over the same period.

The scale of this new loan shows how far SoftBank is willing to go. Even with a heavy debt load, the group is placing itself at the centre of the global AI growth, where companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon are all expanding their chances.

The project is still in its early stages but people familiar with the matter say it may take months before it is ready.

Engineers at OpenAI began exploring the idea after repeated service disruptions on GitHub in recent months disrupted their work. Those outages forced internal teams to reassess how much they rely on external platforms.

From what has been reported, OpenAI has discussed offering the repository as a paid service to its existing customers. That would place it in direct competition with GitHub, which is owned by Microsoft.

Neither OpenAI nor Microsoft has publicly confirmed the plan. The companies did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication.

If OpenAI moves forward, the decision would test its relationship with Microsoft. The software giant is one of OpenAI’s biggest backers and also controls GitHub, which serves more than 100 million developers worldwide. A competing product from OpenAI would be a rare overlap in their commercial interests.

In February 2026, OpenAI closed a $110 billion funding round that valued the company at $840 billion. Investors in that raise included Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank.

The deal stands among the largest private capital raises to date and places OpenAI ahead of competitors such as Anthropic and Inflection in valuation terms.

For now, the proposed platform is still under development, with OpenAI still weighing whether to build more of its own infrastructure rather than depend on tools owned by partners.

Now among the world’s most valuable private technology firms, the company confirmed the round on Thursday, saying investors including D. E. Shaw Ventures, ICONIQ and MGX co-led the deal. 

Microsoft and Nvidia also took part, adding to their existing investments. Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and Coatue Management were among the lead backers in what the company described as its Series G round. 

Other investors included Founders Fund, Qatar Investment Authority, Accel, General Catalyst and Jane Street.

With this latest raise, Anthropic’s total funding since it was founded now exceeds $57 billion. The Series G deal ranks among the largest private technology financings on record, second only to OpenAI’s $40 billion raise in 2025.

Anthropic said its annualised revenue has reached $14 billion. Its coding-focused product, Claude Code, accounts for more than $2.5 billion of that figure. The company said revenue from Claude Code has more than doubled since the start of 2026.

Business demand is growing. Subscriptions to Claude Code from companies have quadrupled this year. Enterprise clients now generate more than half of the product’s revenue, according to the company.

Anthropic has built much of its strategy around tools for developers and office workers. Its Claude Cowork agent carries out computer-based tasks for white-collar staff. 

The release of plugins for the agent unsettled parts of the software market, as investors weighed the possible impact of automation on traditional software providers.

The funding places Anthropic closer to its main competitor, OpenAI. In January OpenAI was in talks with SoftBank Group to raise as much as $30 billion more, in a deal that could value the company at about $830 billion.

Microsoft and Nvidia have now backed both companies, strengthening their positions as key suppliers of computing power to the artificial intelligence sector. Anthropic also counts Google and Amazon among its earlier supporters.

On regulation, Anthropic has taken a different line from many technology firms. The company has pledged $20 million to support U.S. political candidates who favour stronger oversight of artificial intelligence.

Earlier on Thursday, the company said: “The companies building AI have a responsibility to help ensure the technology serves the public good, not just their own interests.”

Chief executive Dario Amodei repeated that position at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2026, where he said artificial intelligence companies must ensure their technology benefits society as a whole.

Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager, is also increasing its stake in Anthropic to about $1 billion, Reuters reported earlier this week.

This is its fourth straight quarterly increase, with earnings boosted by the value of its investment in OpenAI. 

SoftBank has invested more than $30 billion, holding 11% of the AI firm. By the end of December, it expects total profits from this investment to reach $19.8 billion.

OpenAI is reportedly preparing a new funding round, valued at $830 billion and SoftBank may invest an additional $30 billion alongside Amazon and Nvidia. 

Analysts warn that the conglomerate is now being seen as a publicly traded proxy for OpenAI.

To fund its investments, SoftBank sold parts of its holdings in Nvidia and T-Mobile, raised bonds, and also borrowed against other holdings such as chip designer Arm and its domestic telecom unit, SoftBank Corp. 

The company’s loan-to-value ratio rose to 20.6% in December, up from 16.5% three months earlier. Cash reserves fell to ¥3.8 trillion over the same period.

Masayoshi Son, SoftBank founder and CEO, directly owns 17% of Vision Fund 2, the investment vehicle holding the OpenAI stake. The fund recorded $2.4 billion in valuation profits from OpenAI in the quarter, adding to cumulative profits of $19.8 billion over nine months.

SoftBank’s shares rose 2.4% on the day of the earnings release, slightly ahead of a flat market. The results reveal the company’s heavy focus on AI, showing both the possible rewards and the risks of concentrating investments in a single firm.

From what has emerged so far, Nvidia is weighing the largest cheque. The chipmaker, already central to OpenAI’s operations, is considering an investment of up to $30 billion. 

Microsoft, which has backed OpenAI from the start, is discussing a much smaller top-up of under $10 billion. Amazon, entering the picture for the first time, could commit well above $10 billion and possibly exceed $20 billion.

The discussions are said to be advanced. Term sheets are close, implying the talks have moved beyond early signalling into concrete commitments. None of the companies has confirmed the details. 

Amazon and Microsoft declined to comment, while Nvidia and OpenAI did not respond outside normal business hours.

This would form the core of a funding round that could reach $100 billion. That figure alone changes the scale of the story. At that level, OpenAI’s valuation would rise to around $830 billion, placing it ahead of every private company globally and within touching distance of the largest names on the S&P 500.

SoftBank is also circling. The Japanese group is reportedly in discussions to add up to $30 billion of its own, which would further tilt the round into record territory. 

Nvidia’s involvement helps lock in demand for its chips, which remain essential for training and running large models. Amazon’s interest goes beyond a simple equity stake. 

Its investment is tied to separate negotiations, including a possible expansion of OpenAI’s use of Amazon’s cloud servers and a commercial deal that would see OpenAI’s products sold through Amazon’s enterprise channels. 

For Microsoft, any fresh funding would strengthen an already tight integration between OpenAI’s technology and its own software and cloud services, even as regulators watch.

Behind the OpenAI funding round, the cost of training and operating large models keeps climbing, running into billions of dollars each year. Competition is also strengthening. 

Alphabet is pushing hard with its own systems, and competitors are striking partnerships to close the gap. 

The capital would give OpenAI room to expand and invest aggressively, but it also accentuates how much cash the business burns to stay at the frontier. 

The deal places the Japanese group among the company’s most influential outside backers at a time when demand for advanced computing power is increasing.

Masayoshi Son, SoftBank founder, has pushed capital into OpenAI through a mix of direct funding and syndicated co-investment, spreading part of the risk to other investors while keeping strategic control close. 

Of the total sum, $22.5 billion was completed this week, following an earlier $7.5 billion injection in April. Other backers contributed an additional $11 billion through the syndicated structure.

The transaction raises OpenAI’s valuation far beyond where it stood earlier this year. In March, the business was priced at about $300 billion on a post-money basis. 

By October, a secondary share sale had pushed that figure to around $500 billion, according to PitchBook. That instantaneous re-rating shows how quickly expectations have changed across the sector.

Only days earlier, SoftBank agreed to buy DigitalBridge Group for $4 billion, adding a major digital infrastructure investor to its portfolio. 

Taken together, the two deals point to a deliberate strategy which includes control of the software platforms driving computing, while also owning the physical backbone that keeps them running. 

Son has previously described artificial intelligence as the “axis of global technology markets”, and this latest move reveals that belief in concrete financial terms.

OpenAI now sits at the centre of an initiative to build capacity at huge scale. The company is working with Oracle and other partners on Project Stargate, a multi-year data-centre programme designed to support more powerful models and heavier workloads. 

The initiative is expected to cost tens of billions of dollars and ranks among the most ambitious infrastructure efforts the industry has seen.

Across global markets, competition for computing resources has strengthened. Large technology firms are committing vast sums to secure long-term access to data centres, specialised chips and energy supply. 

SoftBank’s wager is similar to that of competitors, but the size of its commitment differs from those typically associated with sovereign wealth funds.

Despite the scale of the spending, SoftBank has said its financial policies stand unchanged, including its approach to leverage and cash management. 

This was driven by the high valuations in OpenAI and other Vision Fund assets.

The figure, far above analysts’ estimates of ¥207 billion, is a turnaround for the Japanese conglomerate and its most profitable quarter to date. 

The result reveals how Masayoshi Son’s focus on artificial intelligence is bolstering SoftBank’s growth and enhancing exposure to a sector many investors now fear may be entering a bubble.

The company’s Vision Fund unit reported a record investment gain of ¥3.5 trillion for the quarter, with OpenAI alone contributing ¥2.16 trillion. 

The rally in global technology stocks and a surge in AI-related valuations drove this growth, sending SoftBank’s shares to new highs. It was the Vision Fund’s third consecutive profitable quarter, a recovery from the losses that once characterised its track record.

SoftBank’s assertive push into AI reiterates Son’s conviction that artificial intelligence represents the next economic revolution. 

In March, the group led a $40 billion funding round that valued OpenAI at $300 billion. By October, it joined a consortium of investors acquiring $6.6 billion worth of OpenAI employee shares, at an even higher $500 billion valuation.

These initiatives are being financed through an intricate mix of asset sales, bonds, and loans. The company offloaded 32.1 million Nvidia shares in October, raising $5.83 billion, while also issuing bonds in yen, dollars, and euros worth more than ¥620 billion, $2.2 billion, and €1.7 billion respectively since April. 

It further secured an $8.5 billion bridge loan to fund its OpenAI investment and a $6.5 billion facility for its planned acquisition of semiconductor firm Ampere.

Son described this phase as the company’s “most ambitious investment period” since launching its Vision Fund vehicles in 2017 and 2019. He has long been known for his courageous, leveraged investments in transformative technologies. His early stake in Alibaba proved legendary, yet not all ventures, including WeWork, ended well.

However, even with the SoftBank historic profit, analysts warn of a potential “AI bubble,” as sky-high valuations risk overtaking real-world profitability.