SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman attend an event to pitch AI for businesses in Tokyo, Japan Feb. 3, 2025.

Kim Kyung-Hoon | Reuters

OpenAI and SoftBank announced plans to invest $1 billion in SB Energy as part of a strategic partnership that will support OpenAI’s artificial intelligence infrastructure buildout.

The partnership is part of the $500 billion Stargate commitment that OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle announced last January at the White House, according to a Friday release. As part of the agreement, SB Energy will build and operate OpenAI’s 1.2 gigawatt data center site in Milam County, Texas that was announced in September.

“Partnering with SB Energy brings together their strength in data center infrastructure and energy development and OpenAI’s deep domain expertise in data center engineering,” Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, said in a statement on Friday. “The result is a fast, reliable way to scale compute through large, highly optimized AI data centers.”

SB Energy is backed by SoftBank and Ares Management. The company develops, owns and operates energy projects across the U.S. It has offices in Redwood City, California, San Diego and Denver, according to its website.

In addition to the investment, SB Energy has also formed a non-exclusive preferred partnership with OpenAI and SoftBank to develop “a new model for data center builds,” according to the release. That model will combine OpenAI’s first-party data center design with SB Energy’s “proven expertise in speed, cost discipline, and integrated energy delivery,” the companies said.

The company has several multi-gigawatt data center campuses in development, and initial facilities are under construction and expected to enter service this year, the release said.

SoftBank, led by Masayoshi Son, and OpenAI have become increasingly intertwined over the past year.

Two months after the Stargate project was announced, OpenAI said it closed a $40 billion financing round led by SoftBank, the largest private tech funding on record. The round included participation from core investor Microsoft, as well as Coatue, Altimeter and Thrive.

SoftBank said in November that it’s sold its entire stake in chipmaker Nvidia for $5.83 billion as it looks to capitalize on its “all in” bet on OpenAI.

The ChatGPT maker is burning through mounds of cash, and is still far from profitability, meaning it remains heavily reliant on outside capital.

OpenAI has inked more than $1.4 trillion of infrastructure deals in recent months to try and build out the data centers it says are needed to meet growing demand. In November, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company was on track to generate more than $20 billion in annualized revenue run rate in 2025, with plans to grow to hundreds of billions in sales by 2030.

WATCH: Judge rules Elon Musk’s lawsuit over OpenAI for-profit conversion can head to trial

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The logo of SoftBank is displayed at a company shop in Tokyo, Japan January 28, 2025. 

Issei Kato | Reuters

Shares of Japan’s SoftBank Group resumed their slide on Friday, following a broader slump in AI-related stocks as investors once again grew wary of the sector’s lofty valuations.

The group, which holds a wide range of AI investments across infrastructure, semiconductor, and application companies, saw shares close 6.87% lower, recouping some losses from earlier in the session.

This comes after SoftBank gained nearly 3% in the previous session, having plunged 10% on Wednesday to clock its worst day since April. It saw almost $50 billion in market cap wiped out this week and its worst weekly loss since March 2020, down nearly 20%.

“SoftBank Group’s shares are falling as many bought it as the only listed proxy for OpenAI,” said David Gibson, senior research analyst at financial services firm MST Financial.

The pullback reflects growing caution around the AI sector and a realization that many of OpenAI’s partnerships are still potential rather than confirmed, with funding prospects uncertain, he told CNBC.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly said the company has spoken with the U.S. government about potential federal loan guarantees to encourage chip factory construction. His comments came after OpenAI’s CFO suggested the firm hoped for federal help in securing chip financing.

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Shares of SoftBank Group fall following renewed pressure on AI-linked stocks

SoftBank holds a controlling stake in U.K.-based semiconductor designer Arm Holdings, whose chips help power mobile and AI processors globally. Shares of Nasdaq-listed Arm slid 1.21% overnight.

Separately, Bloomberg recently reported citing people familiar with the matter that the group considered acquiring U.S. chipmaker Marvell Technology Inc. earlier this year.

Broader decline

Other Japanese tech stocks also declined. Semiconductor testing equipment maker Advantest dropped 5.5%, chipmaker Renesas Electronics fell nearly 4%, Tokyo Electron, a chip production equipment maker, declined 1.35%.

Shares of the world’s largest chipmaker, TSMC, fell 0.34%.

Nvidia-supplier SK Hynix was down 2.2% and South Korean peer and memory chipmaker Samsung fell 1.3%.

The declines in Asian tech stocks also come after AI-related companies in the U.S. fell overnight

Qualcomm dropped almost 4%, despite strong quarterly results, after warning it could lose future Apple business. AMD, a strong performer Wednesday, slipped 7%, while Palantir and Oracle were down about 7% and 3%, respectively. Nvidia and Meta Platforms also finished lower.

The excitement surrounding AI has raised worries that markets might be experiencing a tech bubble. Some experts argue that the valuations of AI companies are starting to resemble the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, with stock prices rising well beyond realistic profit forecasts.

The economic impact of artificial intelligence is undeniable and market bumps are inevitable, said Laura Cooper, global investment strategist at Nuveen.

“Still, it’s too soon to call a bubble. Today’s AI capex is being funded largely by cash-rich firms with solid balance sheets, not cheap credit or speculation,” she said. “The greater risk isn’t a bubble bursting, but valuation fatigue — investors tiring of paying ever-richer premiums for AI returns that don’t materialize quickly enough.”

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The logo of Japanese company SoftBank Group is seen outside the company’s headquarters in Tokyo on January 22, 2025. 

Kazuhiro Nogi | Afp | Getty Images

SoftBank Group said Wednesday that it will acquire Ampere Computing, a startup that designed an Arm-based server chip, for $6.5 billion.

The Japanese giant expects the deal to close in the second half of 2025, according to a statement.

Carlyle Group and Oracle both have committed to selling their respective stakes in Ampere, which will operate as an independent subsidiary and will keep its headquarters in Santa Clara, California, according to SoftBank.

“Ampere’s expertise in semiconductors and high-performance computing will help accelerate this vision, and deepens our commitment to AI innovation in the United States,” SoftBank Group Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son was quoted as saying in a separate statement.

The startup has 1,000 semiconductor engineers, SoftBank said.

SoftBank has been broadening its investments in AI infrastructure, including a partnership with OpenAI announced last month to create enterprise level AI and through its involvement in U.S. President Donald Trump’s $500 billion private AI investment project Stargate. 

“With a shared vision for advancing AI, we are excited to join SoftBank Group and partner with its portfolio of leading technology companies,” said Renee James, Founder and CEO of Ampere. “This is a fantastic outcome for our team, and we are excited to drive forward our AmpereOne® roadmap for high performance Arm processors and AI.”

Softbank acquired British chip designer Arm in 2016 for $32 billion, with the company launching its initial public offering in 2023.  

Renee James, founder and chief executive officer of Ampere Computing LLC, speaks at the ai-Pulse conference in Paris, Nov. 7, 2024.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Chips that use Arm’s instruction set represent an alternative to chips based on the x86 architecture, which Intel and AMD sell. Arm-based chips often consume less energy.

Ampere’s founder and CEO, Renee James, established the startup in 2017 after 28 years at Intel, where she rose to the position of president.

Leading cloud infrastructure provider Amazon Web Services offers a Graviton Arm chip for rent that have become popular among large customers. In October, Microsoft started selling access to its own Cobalt 100 Arm-based cloud computing instances.

Shares of SoftBank were last seen trading down about 2% on Thursday.

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