Topline
SoftBank shares climbed to an all-time high on Wednesday, a sign of renewed confidence in the storied tech firm amid booming investor interest in artificial intelligence after founder and CEO Masayoshi Son unveiled plans to make aggressive moves in the sector and invest heavily in AI and chip companies.
SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son has said the company will bet big on AI and computer chips.
Key Facts
SoftBank Group shares rose 1.5% during regular trading hours in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Shares were trading at ¥10,705.00 (around $66) per share by market close, an all time high for the investment company.
Part of SoftBank’s climb can be attributed to the recovery of the Nikkei 225 benchmark index, Tomoaki Kawasaki, a senior analyst at IwaiCosmo Securities, told Bloomberg.
However, Kawasaki said the investment firm has also benefited from its growing reputation among investors as a “semiconductor-related stock.”
Semiconductors, or computer chips, are vital for running and developing powerful generative AI software and the industry has grown explosively alongside booming interest in AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude.
The rally also indicates broad confidence in the vision of SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son, who last month told shareholders the company would be making a push into AI that would make earlier investments seem like a “warm up,” singling out AI chips, robotics, autonomous driving and data centers as key sectors for investment.
Forbes Valuation
SoftBank’s Son’s net worth has grown by nearly $600 million, around 1.7%, in the last day and he is now worth approximately $34.1 billion. Son’s wealth, largely derived from his stake in the tech investment giant, makes him the 48th-richest person in the world and Japan’s second-richest person, around $3 billion behind apparel billionaire Tadashi Yanai.
Key Background
SoftBank holds a legendary position among tech investors and Son was widely viewed as a visionary by many in the industry. The Japanese tech investment giant has made some of the most successful gambles in history, striking gold with a particularly lucrative investment in China’s Alibaba. In recent years, however, the company’s reputation has dimmed in the wake of several high profile flubs in its flagship Vision Fund. Notable among these is the selling of a 5% stake in chipmaking titan Nvidia five years ago that today would be worth around $160 billion, something Son says he regrets. The company entered a self-declared “defense mode” several years ago to regroup but has recently vowed to go back on the offensive with AI and computer chips to capitalize on the AI boom. Son says SoftBank’s AI strategy shall center on semiconductor company Arm, a chip-making giant it holds a majority stake in.
What To Watch For
SoftBank is reportedly setting its sights on British AI firm Graphcore, though any takeover could potentially be stalled by a national security review by the U.K. government. The sale of key AI technologies like semiconductor chips are increasingly viewed as a matter of national security by governments around the world given their growing importance to defense and critical infrastructure, as well as other strategically important areas.
Crucial Quote
Last month, SoftBank’s Son said he believed his life mission was to bring about an age of artificial superintelligence where AI was 10,000 times smarter than humans, a return to the kind of bold rhetoric the founder was known for in the past. “This is what I was born to do, to realize ASI,” he said, positioning the AI vision at the center of SoftBank’s future operations. “Watch me, I will make it happen.”
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