By Kosaku Narioka


SoftBank Group is doubling down on its investment in OpenAI, taking a bigger bet on the potential of artificial intelligence as the technology improves and gains momentum.

The Japanese tech investment company is starting a tender offer to buy $1.5 billion of OpenAI shares from employees of the startup behind ChatGPT, a person familiar with the matter said.

SoftBank is making the investment through its Vision Fund 2, the person said, adding that current and former OpenAI employees will have until Dec. 24 to decide whether to sell their shares.

CNBC earlier reported that OpenAI is allowing employees to sell roughly $1.5 billion of shares in a new tender offer to SoftBank.

The potential $1.5 billion investment would be on top of the $500 million SoftBank invested via its Vision Fund 2 when the AI startup raised $6.6 billion in a recent round of new funding.

At an earnings briefing earlier this month, Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto said the group's financial footing improved on strong results, allowing it to make bigger investments selectively at the right time.

"We are preparing to take advantage of various opportunities," he said then, adding that the half-billion investment in OpenAI was modest but would help strengthen its relationship with the startup.

In October, Chief Executive Masayoshi Son reiterated his bullish forecasts for AI, saying he believed artificial general intelligence, in which computers have human-level cognitive abilities, would be achieved in two to three years.

SoftBank Group booked net profit of about $7.7 billion for the three months ended September, supported by gains in its stakes in e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese ride-hailing company DiDi Global and T-Mobile US.

The company and its tech funds have started investing more aggressively in recent months after a yearslong defensive strategy, as tech stocks have climbed thanks to AI enthusiasm and the Federal Reserve's rate cuts.

Shares in SoftBank have gained about 43% this year, driven by hopes for growing AI-related demand at the company's investees, including subsidiary Arm Holdings.

News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI.


Write to Kosaku Narioka at kosaku.narioka@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

11-27-24 0601ET