Japanese investment firm, SoftBank has announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI on Jan. 31 to develop and market Cristal Intelligence, an enterprise AI solution designed for secure, customized business automation. They also revealed they would spend $3 billion annually to deploy OpenAI’s solutions across all the companies in their group, which includes the chip design giant Arm.
“SoftBank Corp. plans to automate over 100 million workflows by using Cristal intelligence, while providing data and additional training in a secure manner,” a report from SoftBank said. It was also revealed that Arm would use Cristal Intelligence to “drive innovation and boost productivity in the company.”
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The companies also announced the establishment of a joint venture called SBOpenAI Japan, for accelerating the deployment and marketing of Cristal intelligence. The joint venture will be “owned fifty-fifty by OpenAI and a company established by SoftBank Group Corp.”
In this venture, OpenAI would contribute to AI research, technology, and engineering, while SoftBank would provide its sales staff, operational expertise, and business insights. “SoftBank Group is fully committed to leveraging the new products across our entire organization and utilizing our great partnership with OpenAI to drive the AI revolution forward,” said Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank and Stargate Project chairman.
Earlier, it was reported that SoftBank was in discussions to invest up to $25 billion in OpenAI, which would make it the startup’s largest backer. Son has also previously invested in the Stargate Project, a $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative backed by tech titans such as Oracle CTO Larry Ellison, Son, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
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SoftBank has of late, been showing a lot of interest in AI. According to recent reports, it is in talks to invest up to $25 billion in OpenAI as part of a broader partnership that could see the Japanese conglomerate spend more than $40 billion on AI initiatives with the Microsoft-backed startup.
The news comes shortly after Chinese Startup DeepSeek’s disruption with their AI model which surpassed leading Western models—including OpenAI’s ChatGPT—in performance and training costs.