SoftBank has secured a $40 billion short-term bridge loan from a group of global banks to accelerate its push into artificial intelligence, with a major focus on expanding its stake in OpenAI. The loan is unsecured and expected to mature within about a year. A large part of the funds will go toward increasing the Japanese investment giant’s ownership in the ChatGPT maker. Notably, last month SoftBank committed to invest $30 billion in OpenAI through its Vision Fund 2 as part of a $110 billion funding round, which valued the AI firm at around $730 billion.
The bridge financing has been arranged by a consortium of major international banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Mizuho Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and MUFG Bank. Such bridge loans are usually taken as short-term funding, meaning SoftBank may later repay this loan using longer-term funding, by selling some of its assets, or by raising money through its investment funds.
The latest move clearly shows the vision of SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, who has repeatedly stressed that AI will surpass previous technological revolutions in scale and impact. And therefore, the investment behemoth has been slowly building its position as one of the biggest supporters of OpenAI. By the end of 2025, it had gained an estimated around 11% stake in the company through earlier investments and deals. If it increases this stake further, SoftBank could gain strong influence and a major role in the fast-growing AI industry. At the same time, SoftBank is also part of big infrastructure projects like the Stargate Project, which plans to invest up to $500 billion over the long term to build advanced AI data centers and computing networks, especially in the US.
A major reason for continuing to bet heavily on OpenAI is SoftBank Group’s strong financial turnaround. In the October-December 2025 quarter, SoftBank reported a net profit of about $1.6 billion (~ ¥250 billion), marking its fourth straight profitable quarter, compared to a loss of around ¥369 billion in the same period a year earlier. A key driver behind this recovery has been its AI investments, especially OpenAI, from which the Japanese technology and investment giant has already recorded about $19.8 billion (~ ¥2.8 trillion) in cumulative valuation gains over the nine months through December.
However, the timing remains critical, as the group has also recently exited some prominent AI investments. For example, in October 2025, SoftBank sold its entire stake of about 32 million shares in Nvidia for around $5.8 billion, stating that the move was intended to unlock capital for new AI infrastructure and model-development projects, rather than reflecting any lack of confidence in Nvidia’s future.
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