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 post SoftBank Cuts Planned OpenAI-Backed Loan From $10bn to Around $6bn appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

With Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus, T-Mobile will leverage Red Hat’s industry leading, flexible and scalable platform that fosters innovation by delivering streamlined operations, enhanced automation, reduced costs and an accelerated time-to-market for new applications and services.

For telecommunications service providers, the demand for cloud flexibility is on the rise and cutting costs is vital for unlocking funds to support new investments.

This requires strategic enhancement of efficiencies and productivity through software innovation.

By implementing Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus, T-Mobile can deploy a common telco cloud that helps address these challenges by:

• Keeping costs low by consolidating and standardising infrastructure across various workloads, including end-to-end automation for greater operational efficiency;
• Standardised training, support, compliance and security capabilities across all stacks to help reduce risk and complexity in managing diverse telecom workloads;
• Accelerated time-to-market with simple certification, pre-validation and lifecycle management processes including integration of VNFs, CNFs and IT applications;
• Scalability and flexibility in hybrid multi-cloud environments for enablement of more reliable, carrier-grade services to meet telecommunication service provider’s needs.

Meeting customers where they are with the Red Hat partner ecosystem

Working with Red Hat means telecommunication service providers can more easily interact with an array of open source technologies and communities, including a direct pipeline for requests and feedback upstream.

Deploying a common telco cloud also brings together a robust partner ecosystem in a unified, standards-based environment for more efficient development, testing and deployment.

It fosters collaboration and innovation by simplifying workload integration and speeding up certification processes, while expanding market opportunities and enabling more seamless alignment with telecom operators’ requirements.

With Red Hat and other key partners, T-Mobile and other wireless service providers will be able to more quickly deploy new services enabled on a pre-integrated and validated partner workload with a common telco cloud. 

Fran Heeran, vice president, Global Telecommunications, Red Hat, said:

“As telecommunications service providers face increasing demands for cloud flexibility, consistency and cost optimisation, Red Hat OpenShift provides a standardised, scalable foundation to drive efficiency and innovation. By collaborating with T-Mobile to power its common telco cloud, Red Hat will help unlock new opportunities for streamlined operations, faster service delivery and a simplified approach to managing diverse workloads across the core network. Together, we’re enabling a flexible, carrier-grade platform that not only meets today’s needs but lays the groundwork for tomorrow’s advancements.”

Lori Ames, senior vice president, Cloud, IP & Transport Technology, T-Mobile, said:

“T-Mobile’s multipurpose cloud will bridge us from a traditional telco to a dynamic techco, exposing previously untapped innovation while enhancing operational efficiencies. By partnering with best-in-class providers like Red Hat to  leverage cloud-native agility, automation and AI-driven insights, we’re redefining connectivity for the digital economy by meeting our customers where they need us.”

The post T-Mobile Selects Red Hat for Common Telco Cloud appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The device, which will be priced under $1,000, is set for release in the second half of the year, with sales expected to begin in 2026.

Claudia Nemat, DT’s board member in charge of technology and innovation, emphasised that while the company is not building large language models, it is focusing on AI agents. “We are becoming an AI company,” she stated during a press conference at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona.

Perplexity, known for its AI-powered search engine, will be a huge part of the phone’s AI features. The company’s CEO, Aravind Srinivas, explained its approach: “Perplexity is transitioning from just being an answer machine to an action machine. It is going to start doing things for you, not just answering questions. It’s going to be able to book flights for you, book reservations for you, send emails for you, send messages, place phone calls for you, and all those sorts of things, like set smart reminders.”

Although specific details about the device’s hardware and operating system remain undisclosed, Nemat noted that the phone would incorporate AI features directly into its core functionality, including lock screen interactions. It will also integrate services from Google Cloud AI, ElevenLabs, and Picsart.

T-Mobile’s AI assistant, Magenta AI, will be available as an app for Android and iOS users, but only for existing T-Mobile customers. 

This launch aligns with telecom companies’ focus on regaining influence in the smartphone sector, which has long been filled up by manufacturers and software giants like Apple and Google.

Perplexity’s involvement in the project comes as it seeks to differentiate itself in the competitive AI space, where companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google continue to push boundaries. “These are the kinds of things that earlier you would have to do in your own way, learning how to use these different apps,” Srinivas noted. 

“All these things are going to start becoming easier so that you can focus your time and energy on problem-solving.”

Telecom providers are looking to leverage new technology to strengthen their market position and T-Mobile seeks to disrupt the smartphone market.

The post T-Mobile to Launch AI-Integrated Smartphone in Collaboration with Perplexity appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.