Soufun Group has recently adjusted its margin loan program, which uses its shares in OpenAI as collateral, reducing the targeted financing scale from the originally planned $10 billion to $6 billion, a 40% decrease. According to a May 8 report by Bloomberg, the loan term is set at two years with an option to extend for one more year.

The reduction in the financing scale reflects some creditors' lack of confidence in the reliable valuation of equity in OpenAI, a major unlisted company. Due to the uncertainty in valuation stability, disposal efficiency, and liquidity expectations of non-publicly traded assets, financial institutions have become more conservative in their credit decisions.

OpenAI, ChatGPT, artificial intelligence, AI

Although Soufun continues to increase its investment in the field of artificial intelligence, this calibration of leverage indicates that even with highly popular AI targets, the capital market maintains a clear risk prevention awareness when dealing with such high-valued and low-transparency asset pledges. Currently, negotiations between Soufun and the lenders are still ongoing, and the final loan amount may be further adjusted based on market feedback. This development is not only an individual financing adjustment for Soufun but also signals that the market's acceptance of equity in unlisted AI star companies is not yet fully open.

Against the backdrop of global AI competition entering deeper waters, the demand for funding in model development is clashing with a return to market rationality. Recently, Anthropic and Akamai reached an $18 billion computing power cooperation, and NVIDIA released the CUDA-Oxide compiler aiming to reshape the underlying ecosystem, showing that the AI industry chain is shifting from pure capital-driven growth to complex ecological integration. The "shrinking" of Soufun's financing means that even top-tier AI assets will face more rigorous value scrutiny in the process of financialization.