{"id":12453,"date":"2023-09-16T09:32:01","date_gmt":"2023-09-16T09:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/business\/softbank-seeks-openai-tie-up-as-son-plans-deal-spree-after-arm-ipo\/"},"modified":"2023-09-16T09:32:01","modified_gmt":"2023-09-16T09:32:01","slug":"softbank-seeks-openai-tie-up-as-son-plans-deal-spree-after-arm-ipo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=12453","title":{"rendered":"SoftBank seeks OpenAI tie-up as Son plans deal spree after Arm IPO"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Receive free SoftBank Group Corp updates<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description\"><span>We\u2019ll send you a <i>myFT Daily Digest<\/i> email rounding up the latest<!-- --> <!-- -->SoftBank Group Corp<!-- --> news every morning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=61d5b168-1e5e-4837-b830-1e6dd4d6f276&amp;concept-id=2d38f7bb-9601-4365-90fa-779306db9cf1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>SoftBank is on the hunt for deals in artificial intelligence, including a potential investment in OpenAI, after the blockbuster listing of UK chip designer Arm bolstered Masayoshi Son\u2019s multibillion-dollar war chest. <\/p>\n<p>Two people familiar with Son\u2019s thinking said that the Japanese conglomerate\u2019s founder and chief executive is looking to invest tens of billions in AI after completing Arm\u2019s initial public offering. <\/p>\n<p>Microsoft-backed OpenAI is one of several options SoftBank is considering for a handful of such deals. SoftBank could also look to strike a broad strategic partnership with the ChatGPT maker, these people said. <\/p>\n<p>SoftBank is also looking at a range of alternatives to OpenAI, including making substantial investments in direct rivals of the ChatGPT maker, they added. The company also made a preliminary approach to buy Graphcore, a UK-based AI chipmaker, they said. <\/p>\n<p>SoftBank said: \u201cWe do not comment on rumours.\u201d OpenAI declined to comment. Graphcore denied that it received an offer from SoftBank. <\/p>\n<p>Analysts say Arm\u2019s IPO on Thursday, which raised almost $5bn in proceeds, will expand SoftBank\u2019s war chest to as much as $65bn, including its own cash as well as using its remaining 90 per cent holding in Arm as collateral for loans. <\/p>\n<p>Son, who said in June he was a \u201cheavy user\u201d of ChatGPT, has developed a close relationship with OpenAI\u2019s chief executive Sam Altman. Son has described Altman as \u201cone of the key people on Earth\u201d and said he speaks to him almost every day.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>SoftBank\u2019s mobile unit already has a business partnership with OpenAI to serve companies in Japan that want to deploy generative AI technology, such as chatbots. The service is based on the Azure computing platform developed by Microsoft, which is OpenAI\u2019s exclusive cloud provider. Earlier this year, Microsoft invested $10bn in OpenAI, in a multiyear deal, according to people familiar with the matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The SoftBank mobile subsidiary has also said it wants to develop its own Japanese equivalent of ChatGPT. <\/p>\n<p>Son\u2019s enthusiasm for dealmaking, according to people close to his inner circle, has rebounded strongly in recent months and culminated in the prolific tech investor saying in June he was going back into \u201coffence mode\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>During the pandemic and through the tech downturn in 2022, Son was in a self-declared \u201cdefensive mode\u201d, during which new dealmaking was heavily curtailed and the company set about bolstering its cash position. After concentrating on Arm for several months in the run-up to its IPO, its successful listing has freed up Son to resume dealmaking with renewed vigour, according to people familiar with his thinking. <\/p>\n<p>Son holds wider ambitions to establish his Japanese technology conglomerate as a credible competitor in the field of AI, including in the chips that power the technology.<\/p>\n<p>At the moment, the big winner from AI has been Nvidia. The Silicon Valley-based company\u2019s dominance in the market for AI chips has propelled its market value to more than $1tn this year. SoftBank took a stake in the chipmaker in 2017 but sold it in 2019. <\/p>\n<p>Arm made AI a key part of its growth story to investors during this month\u2019s IPO roadshow, as it looks to diversify from its core smartphone market and expand its reach in cloud computing. <\/p>\n<p>However, analysts said Arm plays a much smaller role in the creation of large language models \u2014 the technology that powers ChatGPT \u2014 than Nvidia. <\/p>\n<p><em>Additional reporting by Richard Waters, Sam Agini and Tim Bradshaw<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/61d5b168-1e5e-4837-b830-1e6dd4d6f276\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Receive free SoftBank Group Corp updates We\u2019ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest SoftBank Group Corp news every morning. SoftBank is on the hunt for deals in artificial intelligence, including a potential investment in OpenAI, after the blockbuster listing of UK chip designer Arm bolstered Masayoshi Son\u2019s multibillion-dollar war chest. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12453","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>SoftBank seeks OpenAI tie-up as Son plans deal spree after Arm IPO | Prosfunds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Receive free SoftBank Group Corp updatesWe\u2019ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest SoftBank Group Corp news every morning.SoftBank is\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=12453\" \/>\n<meta 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