Providing SoftBank with a $40 billion "unsecured 1-year loan"! Are JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs "confident" that OpenAI will IPO this year?

SoftBank commits $40 billion to a bridging loan as it bets on OpenAI, and the loan structure itself may already reveal Wall Street’s view of this AI giant’s IPO timeline.

On Friday, SoftBank Group announced that it has secured a $40 billion bridge loan to support its investment commitment to OpenAI and for general corporate purposes. The loan is jointly arranged by JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Mizuho Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and Mitsubishi UFJ Bank.

What is most striking about this loan is its structure: unsecured, with a term of only 12 months, and repayable or refinanced by March 2027. This arrangement suggests that the participating banks may broadly expect that OpenAI will complete its IPO within a year, at which point SoftBank will have sufficient liquidity to repay the debt.

“1-year unsecured” structure: Is Wall Street betting that OpenAI will go public this year?

The loan’s maturity design is the focus of market attention. This $40 billion bridge loan uses an unsecured structure and provides only a 12-month repayment window, meaning SoftBank must complete repayment or refinancing arrangements before next year.

According to earlier reports by media outlets such as CNBC, OpenAI is expected to push ahead with its IPO plans this year. If the above expectations come true, this IPO would rank among the largest initial public offerings in history, providing SoftBank with ample liquidity to repay the loan.

The fact that top-tier investment banks such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are participating in this short-term unsecured loan is, in itself, being interpreted by the market as these institutions having high confidence in OpenAI’s IPO timing.

SoftBank’s bet on OpenAI rises to more than $60 billion

The loan is directly tied to SoftBank’s earlier investment commitment. Last month, OpenAI completed a record $110 billion fundraising round. SoftBank, through its Vision Fund II, committed $30 billion to invest in it. Adding to its prior investments, SoftBank’s cumulative bet on OpenAI has already exceeded $60 billion.

In recent years, SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son has continued to ramp up investment in the artificial intelligence race. Previously, SoftBank and OpenAI jointly took part in launching the “Stargate Project,” aiming to invest up to $500 billion in the U.S. for AI infrastructure.

In December 2024, Son and then-acting President Trump jointly announced that SoftBank plans to invest $100 billion over the next four years in the U.S. AI and related infrastructure sectors.

A new phase in SoftBank’s AI strategy

This loan is a snapshot of SoftBank’s ongoing acceleration in the AI space. Over the past several years, SoftBank’s Vision Fund has gone through dramatic ups and downs, recording massive losses across multiple investments, but Son has not pulled back—instead, he has chosen to place bigger bets on a new wave of technologies represented by generative AI.

With ChatGPT’s widespread adoption, OpenAI has become a core player in the global generative AI space, and its backers also include Microsoft.

As competition among major technology companies in the AI sector intensifies, SoftBank has further strengthened its strategic ties with OpenAI through this round of financing, while also binding its own fortunes and risks more tightly to the outlook of this leading AI company.