Last week, reports began to circulate that SoftBank is considering investing as much as $25 billion into OpenAI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) news just keep coming from SoftBank Corp. Last week, reports began to circulate that the Japanese company is considering investing as much as $25 billion into OpenAI, a move that would make it the generative AI (gen AI) company’s biggest financial backer. The latest story is that the pair have agreed to develop and market AI systems for enterprises in an offering they’re calling Cristal intelligence.
The AI offering, which the two companies said will securely integrate customized systems with the enterprises’ data, will be marketed by a new joint venture the pair established named SB OpenAI Japan. In a press statement, the pair specify that Cristal intelligence “exclusively” to major Japanese companies.
OpenAI will provide its advanced AI technology and engineering support to SB OpenAI Japan and SoftBank contribute its Japan-based network and provider operational and business insights to help scale these solutions. SoftBank-owned semiconductor company Arm will provide its compute platform, delivering the performance, efficiency and scalability they claimed is required to support increasing computational demands of AI agents. “The learnings gained through this collaboration in Japan will create a repeatable model for AI-driven transformation worldwide,” stated SoftBank.
Cristal intelligence will first roll out in SoftBank Group’s own companies, including Arm and electric payment service PayPay. On its site, SoftBank says that Arm will specifically use Cristal intelligence to “drive innovation and boost productivity,” while SoftBank Corp. will use the technology to automate more than 100 million workflows, increase efficiency and enable the creation of new business opportunities. SoftBank will spend $3 billion a year on this integration.
“This initiative will not only transform the way SoftBank Group operates but also revolutionize the way companies work in Japan and around the globe,” said Masayoshi Son, chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. “SoftBank Group is fully committed to leveraging the new products across our entire organization and utilize our great partnership with OpenAI to drive the AI Revolution forward.”
SoftBank and OpenAI — along with Oracle, Microsoft, Arm, NVIDIA and technology investor MGX — are involved with the Stargate project supported by President Donald Trump, which involves the build out of several AI data centers, as well as the electricity needed to run them, in Texas. The initial investment from these partners is expected to be $100 billion, but the White House noted it could end up being five times that amount.
