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L’Oréal to Invest $383 Million in Indian Beauty Tech Hub

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French cosmetics group L’Oréal said it will invest more than $383 million to establish a beauty technology hub in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, strengthening its push into AI-driven innovation.

The company said the hub will serve as a global base for developing artificial intelligence-powered beauty solutions and is expected to create around 2,000 technology jobs by 2030. The investment, amounting to over 35 billion rupees, aims to accelerate the rollout of advanced digital tools across L’Oréal’s global portfolio.

The partnership was formalized at the World Economic Forum in Davos by L’Oréal CEO Nicolas Hieronimus and the government of Telangana, a state that has rapidly positioned itself as a major technology and investment hub in southern India.

The move reflects growing economic ties between India and France, whose bilateral trade reached $15 billion in 2024. Leaders including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron have been working to deepen cooperation, including efforts to modernize tax agreements in line with global transparency standards.

SoftBank completes $41 billion investment in OpenAI, deepening bet on AI

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SoftBank Group said it has completed a $41 billion investment in OpenAI, marking one of the largest private funding rounds ever and giving the Japanese group an ownership stake of about 11% in the maker of ChatGPT.

The move underscores SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son’s increasingly aggressive push into artificial intelligence, which he has described as an “all in” bet. Son is positioning SoftBank to capitalise on booming demand for AI computing power, spanning both software and the physical infrastructure that underpins advanced models.

SoftBank said it completed an additional $22.5 billion investment on Wednesday, following an earlier $7.5 billion injection in April. OpenAI also secured an expanded syndicated co-investment of $11 billion from other backers as part of the round. In March, SoftBank had agreed to invest up to $40 billion into a for-profit OpenAI subsidiary, with the funding structured through a mix of direct capital and syndicated investments.

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The transaction initially valued OpenAI at about $300 billion on a post-money basis. However, a subsequent secondary share sale completed in October pushed OpenAI’s valuation to roughly $500 billion, according to PitchBook data. CNBC first reported the completion of the latest investment earlier in the day.

The deal comes as artificial intelligence has become the central driver of global technology investment, reshaping corporate strategies and investor expectations. OpenAI has emerged as a key beneficiary of that shift, sitting at the heart of an industry-wide surge in AI spending.

OpenAI is also a core participant in “Stargate,” a large-scale, multi-year data centre initiative being developed alongside Oracle and other partners. The project aims to support next-generation AI models and is backed by major investors including SoftBank, further linking the group’s capital deployment to the infrastructure required for future AI growth.

Experts Divided Over Whether AI Boom Is the Next Big Bubble

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The record-breaking wave of artificial intelligence investments has sparked fierce debate across global markets, with opinions divided over whether the sector is inflating into a bubble reminiscent of the early 2000s dot-com frenzy.

According to Bank of America Global Research, 54% of surveyed fund managers now believe AI stocks are in a bubble, compared to 38% who disagree. The discussion has gained urgency as companies pour hundreds of billions into AI infrastructure, data centers, and startups, pushing valuations to new extremes.

The Bank of England warned that a sharp market correction tied to fading AI optimism could ripple through the global financial system. “The risk of a sharp market correction has increased,” its Financial Policy Committee said in an October update.

Singapore’s GIC investment chief Bryan Yeo also described “a little bit of a hype bubble” in the venture space, saying startups labeled as AI firms are being valued “at huge multiples” of modest revenue.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos offered a nuanced view, saying industrial bubbles often leave lasting benefits even if many investors lose money. “When the dust settles and you see who are the winners, society benefits from those inventions,” he said.

Others, such as Goldman Sachs economist Joseph Briggs and ABB CEO Morten Wierod, argue the AI investment surge remains justified given long-term potential — though both caution about bottlenecks in infrastructure and human resources.

By contrast, Michael Burry — famed for predicting the 2008 financial crisis — has bet against high-flying AI stocks like Nvidia and Palantir, warning that the boom mirrors past speculative manias.

IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas agreed that a correction could come but emphasized it would likely be contained. “This is not financed by debt,” he said, meaning any fallout would primarily hurt equity investors.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman echoed that sentiment, admitting that investors may be “overexcited” and predicting that “someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money.”

Yet, UBS strategists note that even among those who believe in an AI bubble, about 90% are still invested — a sign of the sector’s magnetic pull despite growing caution.