SoftBank's $25 Billion OpenAI Investment Is Game Changing At $300 Billion Valuation
OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son Are AI’s New Power Couple
In his newly built palace near Tokyo, lined by stone statues of Roman emperors and surrounded by an 18-hole golf course, Masayoshi Son was stewing. After declaring for years the imminent arrival of the artificial-intelligence revolution, the chief executive officer of SoftBank Group had missed out on it. I haven’t been able to do anything, he thought, according to a speech he gave to SoftBank investors last year. Can I just get old like this and die?
As it turned out, all he needed was a new golden boy. And now Son, who has a history of latching onto charismatic startup founders, has found one in Sam Altman.
In what would be the largest-ever investment in a startup, Son is preparing to put as much as $43 billion toward Altman’s OpenAI in a pair of transactions. SoftBank is in talks to invest between $15 billion and $25 billion in the ChatGPT maker as part of a blockbuster $40 billion funding round, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The round would value OpenAI at up to $300 billion—nearly double its valuation in October and an undeniable sign of Son’s confidence in its prospects.
In addition, the Japanese tech and investment conglomerate has committed $18 billion toward Stargate, a venture to build cloud computing centers for OpenAI to use, according to people familiar with the matter.
For Altman, who was traveling to Tokyo on Thursday, the tie-up provides him with a deep-pocketed backer at a critical moment. His company’s relationship with Microsoft, its biggest investor to date and longtime exclusive technology partner, has been fraying over OpenAI’s contentionthat it wasn’t getting enough cloud computing power. And the broader AI world has been thrown on its heels by the splashy arrival of DeepSeek, a Chinese developer of cheaply made and free-to-use AI models, which has sparked skepticism about OpenAI’s strategy of spending big on proprietary technology.
Son’s commitment to OpenAI and Stargate ensures that Altman’s company will have ample cloud computing firepower in the coming years just as it has ended the exclusivity portion of its Microsoft deal. And by leading a funding round that would be the biggest in Silicon Valley history, Son is enthusiastically endorsing Altman’s plan to keep spending gobs of cash on leading-edge AI systems.
For all of us, the AI era represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to help build a better, safer, healthier, and more prosperous future, Son wrote in a widely distributed email message Thursday.
More on Son’s investment in OpenAI on Yahoo Finance
Navigating AI's Future | Reid Hoffman with Wharton Dean, Erika James
As part of the Wharton School's Tarnopol Dean’s Lecture Series, tech visionary and co-founder of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman joined Dean Erika James to discuss the profound implications of an AI-powered future. Drawing from his book, Superagency, Hoffman presented a roadmap for harnessing AI to empower individuals, drive societal progress, and unlock new possibilities.
Their lecture, "Embracing AI with Vision and Purpose," delved into AI’s potential to reshape industries, enhance personal agency, and address global challenges. While acknowledging the complexities of an AI-driven world, Hoffman invited the audience to approach the future through a lens of opportunity rather than fear.
Bruce Burke Participating In Forbes Entrepreneur Of Impact Competition
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Microsoft And Partners Investing $72 Million To Launch AI Hub In New Jersey
'Our goal is to build a thriving regional AI economy,' said Microsoft's Brad Smith.
At the end of 2023, the state of New Jersey and Princeton University announced plans to establish an AI Hub in collaboration with the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) to drive regional job growth and advance AI developments. Now, Microsoft and CoreWeave are joining in on the venture.
On Friday, Governor Phil Murphy and Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber released a statement announcing that Microsoft and CoreWeave, the cloud infrastructure company, are joining as founding partners of the NJ AI Hub. Jointly, the partners and the state of New Jersey are expected to invest over $72 million.
Located in Princeton, NJ on space provided by Princeton University, the hub will be a site of world-class research, innovation, education, and workforce development, according to the press statement. The AI Hub will feature an AI accelerator to host cohorts of startup ventures and provide them with support, mentorship, workspace, compute power, legal assistance, and more.
"By leveraging the strengths of the private sector, Princeton, and the state of New Jersey, our goal is to build a thriving regional AI economy that not only drives economic growth, but sets a new standard for research, development, and workforce development," said Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President of Microsoft.
Additionally, Microsoft will bring its TechSpark program, which was launched in 2017 to foster inclusive job and economic opportunities across the US, to the AI Hub. This move is part of the AI Hub's larger mission to develop high-quality talent with schools and employers through education opportunities, projects, teaching tools, apprenticeships, training, and more.
More on Microsoft’s investment in New Jersey AI Hub onZDNET
How AI Will Answer Questions We Haven’t Thought To Ask | Aravind Srinivas | TEDAI San Francisco
Human potential will only accelerate with AI answering questions better and faster than ever before, says Aravind Srinivas, cofounder and CEO of conversational search engine Perplexity.
He examines the trends driving new AI-powered tools that nourish curiosity and creativity — and how they might usher in a new era of intellectual growth and discovery.
"Knowledge does not really care about who you are, where you're from or who you have access to. Rather, what matters is the next question you're going to ask," says Srinivas. (Recorded at TEDAI San Francisco on October 22, 2024)
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Canadian Bitcoin Miner Bitfarms Mulls Pivot To AI Data Centers
Toronto-based bitcoin miner Bitfarms has enlisted two consultants to explore how it can transform some of its facilities to meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence data centers, it said on Friday.
Crypto miners often own large plots of land and significant power resources — assets that are also crucial for high-performance computing (HPC) and AI data centers. To capitalize on the AI boom, many miners have begun to repurpose parts of their operations into data centers, given they already have most of the infrastructure.
Critics of the approach, however, warn that the shift may not be successful because AI data centers are more sophisticated. Bitfarms said the consultants, Appleby Strategy Group and World Wide Technology, will analyze its North American sites. They will also advise the company on its computing and AI strategy, while marketing the sites to potential customers.
Earlier this month, Riot Platforms launched a review of the potential AI and computing uses for parts of its facility in Navarro County, Texas. "The contracts associated with HPC/AI customers provide long-term, steady cash flows and earnings streams, while our bitcoin mining operations will continue to monetize bitcoin's flexible upside potential," Bitfarms CEO Ben Gagnon said.
More on Bitfarms transition from Crypto to AI in press release
Design A Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure, For And With, Artificial Intelligence
In this episode of AI Academy, learn from Hillary Hunter, CTO of IBM Infrastructure, how your existing technology, as part of a hybrid cloud by design architecture, can be the engine that powers your AI strategy and gets your business where it needs to go.
Wayne Rasanen’s Award Winning DecaTxt 3 | A One-Handed Keyboard
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The Rise Of Agentic AI: Google Demonstrates Notebook LM
One of the hallmarks of the early days of 2025 is this rapid-fire news coming from the AI industry. Models are evolving, week after week. Companies are throwing enormous amounts of money at everything from hardware to specialized use cases. Some of the fruits of this labor are now coming out as consumer technology, too.
One very good example is the two-fold process over at Google. Right now, Gemini 1 is getting put into endpoint devices, and introduced to the average user. But Gemini 2 is also underway in a big way, and people close to the project are coming around with demos of the new AI agent technology.
And then there’s Google’s Notebook LM. It’s turning heads – because through its quick evolution, Notebook LM is now much more than just a note-taking tool. Google is showcasing new Notebook LM capabilities. I saw one of these demos recently, and it was really illuminating. Google is embracing the idea of AI agents, and showing the world how this kind of thing works. If you look at the Google blog where Sundar Pichai and others are explaining the building of this agentic technology, they’re talking about “native tool use.” That means that AI entities are going to be able to use tools in the same ways as humans do.
“We’re getting 2.0 into the hands of developers and trusted testers today,” the leadership team writes in an announcement that will likely have a big impact on the industry. “And we’re working quickly to get it into our products, leading with Gemini and Search. Starting today our Gemini 2.0 Flash experimental model will be available to all Gemini users. We're also launching a new feature called Deep Research, which uses advanced reasoning and long context capabilities to act as a research assistant, exploring complex topics and compiling reports on your behalf. It's available in Gemini Advanced today.”
So the AI agents are coming. What that means, in turn, is that they’re going to start doing the tasks that have always been assigned to people. Looking at an actual demo of Notebook LM recently, I saw how a sales person, for example, could automate various parts of their day. The AI agent can contact the person who was the last touch point in the sales funnel, and get information from them. The AI agent can create a roadmap to opportunities. The AI agent can go through a proprietary content management system, and look at everything that’s been posted in the last two weeks, and make decisions accordingly. The sky is the limit.
And it raises questions about what our roles are as people in a business process …
More on Google’s Notebook LM on Forbes
The FBI Is Investigating DeepSeek And NVIDIA, Plus The Complete Story Of The Rise Of DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence
DeepSeek, founded in 2023, emerged from High Flyer, a hedge fund that recognized AI’s potential early, securing 10,000 Nvidia A100 GPUs in 2021. Their latest AI model was reportedly trained for $5.58M over 55 days, but true costs—including infrastructure and labor—are estimated at $500M annually.
DeepSeek has amassed 50,000 Nvidia Hopper-class GPUs, raising concerns about its ability to bypass U.S. export restrictions. The FBI is investigating potential illegal GPU exports via Singapore, which could trigger tighter regulations.
Despite their aggressive expansion, DeepSeek remains about a year behind OpenAI and Anthropic, facing geopolitical risks that could impact their long-term strategy.
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