The Japanese investment firm is entwining its fortunes with a company that expects to lose billions of dollars for years to come, in the hope that it will emerge as the leader in the AI race.

In a statement, SoftBank said it will syndicate up to $10bn of the $40bn investment to co-investors, with its effective investment amount expected to reach $30bn. OpenAI said in a

PALO ALTO, U.S./TOKYO -- OpenAI's latest $40 billion funding round positions Japan's SoftBank Group as a leading partner for the U.S.-based ChatGPT developer looking to build artificial intelligence infrastructure to compete with such new players as DeepSeek.