Nvidia and SoftBank recently paid in full the $30 billion each had pledged in OpenAI's March investment round. Pictured is the opening screen of ChatGPT, the AI model developed by OpenAI. [Getty Images]
Nvidia and SoftBank recently paid in full the $30 billion each had pledged in OpenAI's March investment round. Pictured is the opening screen of ChatGPT, the AI model developed by OpenAI. [Getty Images]

Nvidia and Japan's SoftBank Group have completed the disbursement of the $60 billion in OpenAI investment they pledged earlier this year, equivalent to 82 trillion won.

The Information reported Thursday (local time) that both companies recently paid in the remaining $10 billion each of the $30 billion they had each committed during OpenAI's fundraising round in March.

With the payments complete, SoftBank Group has now invested a total of $64.6 billion in OpenAI, giving it a 13 percent stake. To help fund its investments in OpenAI and other ventures, SoftBank late last month issued $11.1 billion in junk bonds — speculative-grade corporate bonds.

Amazon also participated in the March round in which SoftBank and Nvidia each pledged $30 billion. Amazon committed $50 billion at the time and disbursed the full amount in July.

With the March funding round — which valued OpenAI at $852 billion — now wrapped up, the company can move ahead with its next private fundraising effort. OpenAI had planned to hold an initial public offering this year but recently decided to push the IPO back to next year amid growing calls for a slowdown in AI development. Instead, the company plans to conduct an additional investment round before year's end, targeting $30 billion at a valuation of $1.4 trillion.

Nvidia is also guaranteeing $105 billion in lease costs for a data center OpenAI is building in Pike County, Ohio, and investing $1.5 billion in SB Energy, a SoftBank subsidiary serving as the construction company on the project. The close alliance among Nvidia, SoftBank and OpenAI has drawn criticism as a form of "circular dealing" — the concern being that such arrangements obscure whether AI-related companies can generate real profits.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang pushed back on the criticism, saying the company invests where it sees a high probability of success and that such decisions are a matter of business judgment.


kate01@heraldcorp.com