All articles tagged with #softbank
Masayoshi Son is seeking up to $100bn from Gulf investors to fund a new AI-focused fund, following a $65bn investment in OpenAI. The move aims to scale SoftBank’s AI portfolio but faces skepticism due to OpenAI’s delayed IPO and recent revenue shortfalls. Son has held talks with UAE officials, while critics like Elon Musk question the venture’s viability.
Global debt has exceeded $365 trillion, prompting warnings about a 'vicious cycle' of rising interest costs. Simultaneously, New York Fed Chair John Williams indicated that another rate hike before year-end is a 'reasonable' possibility, while the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield hit a 19-year high. In related developments, the U.S. and China extended their trade truce until January 2027, and SoftBank raised $11.1 billion to fund its OpenAI investment.
SB Energy, a SoftBank-backed data centre developer, has slowed its initial public offering timeline despite targeting a $50bn valuation. The delay follows lukewarm investor interest in a potential $4.9bn debt sale, which would carry a junk credit rating, and broader market skepticism regarding AI demand. The company, which has no operational data centres yet, faces scrutiny over its heavy reliance on OpenAI and the need for $174bn in future investment.
SoftBank is issuing $10 billion in dollar-denominated and €1 billion in euro-denominated high-yield bonds to finance its third installment of investment in OpenAI. The deal, which aims to close next month, replaces bridge loans and signals a shift toward long-term debt funding for AI infrastructure. Early investor orders exceeded $8 billion before the official launch, with yields expected between 9% and 10% for the dollar tranches. This move expands SoftBank’s existing debt load, which includes a $40 billion bridge loan facility, and tests the limits of corporate credit markets as Big Tech firms increasingly borrow to fund artificial intelligence expansion.
Global AI-linked equities dropped sharply on Monday following a weekend call by top industry leaders to slow the pace of artificial intelligence development. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay urging major firms to coordinate on safety and development speed, a stance supported by OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SpaceX’s Elon Musk. The announcement triggered a sell-off in Asian markets, with SoftBank falling up to 13% and South Korea’s Kospi index dropping 2.8%. Chipmakers, which had seen significant gains earlier in the year, faced particular pressure, while some investors viewed the potential for increased oversight as a stabilizing factor against the risk of a sudden industry shutdown.
Arm CEO Rene Haas says AI will eventually help cure cancer, but modelling DNA markers is too complex today; progress is slowed by a global chip shortage that's delaying AI data-centre rollouts and humanoid-robot deployments. He doubts UK fabs will be built, notes Arm powers half of AI data centres and reports strong demand for its Arm AGI chips, while predicting only modest job losses amid ongoing AI investment.
SB Energy, backed by SoftBank, OpenAI, and Nvidia, filed for an SEC IPO as none of its data centers are operational and it has yet to generate data-center revenue; the company’s outlook hinges on OpenAI’s performance and substantial early-stage losses, with a targeted $5–7 billion raise and a Nasdaq listing under SBE, aided by Nvidia financing and OpenAI ties, while facing risks from data-center backlash, regulatory changes, and potential tech obsolescence.
According to The Information, Nvidia is negotiating up to $3 billion in SB Energy—SoftBank's energy unit—to back OpenAI's planned Ohio data center campus, part of roughly $100 billion in credit support; the deal could be staged with half the funds at signing and the rest around SB Energy's anticipated IPO, though Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
Iran’s plan to bar U.S. and Israeli ships through the Strait of Hormuz clouds a hoped-for U.S.–Iran deal and pushes oil higher, with copper also reaching a record as demand grows; SpaceX shares rise after the lockup expiry while SoftBank slides despite an earnings beat, reflecting a mixed tech and energy market backdrop.
Asian tech stocks extended their sell-off as semiconductor names led declines after another weak U.S. session, with SK Hynix down more than 15% after missing estimates despite record quarterly profit and Samsung Electronics falling over 8% (LG Innotek and Seoul Semiconductor also slid). The move reflects ongoing deleveraging in Korea and softer sentiment toward global tech stocks, though some investors see value at lower prices. In the U.S., Nvidia opened lower but finished roughly flat, while Intel fell ~6% and AMD ~8%; memory makers Micron and Seagate also dropped. SoftBank slid about 10% as an AI proxy weighs on sentiment, with Taiwan’s TSMC and regional indices broadly weaker.
SoftBank Group’s stock tumbled about 12% in Tokyo after reports that OpenAI may delay its IPO until next year, clouding a potential windfall for SoftBank’s vast portfolio. An OpenAI listing would provide a transparent valuation for SoftBank’s stake in the ChatGPT-maker and hundreds of startups, potentially reducing the conglomerate discount. OpenAI has filed with the SEC and is working with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, with some sources suggesting a fall listing, though broader tech-market volatility could dampen investor enthusiasm.
Hyundai Motor Group will pay $325 million to buy SoftBank's remaining 9.65% stake in Boston Dynamics, gaining full ownership and signaling a shift from demos to production. Atlas is slated to begin in Hyundai's Georgia Metaplant by 2028 with sequencing tasks first, expanding to heavier automation by 2030, aided by Hyundai Mobis components; SoftBank pivots toward AI infrastructure via Roze AI, while Boston Dynamics becomes a manufacturing platform within Hyundai's ecosystem.
SpaceX’s historic IPO has vaulted its backers into the top tier of inflation-adjusted venture-capital gains, with multiple funds (Valor Equity Partners, Founders Fund, DFJ Growth, Sequoia, 137 Ventures, and others) posting multibillion-dollar, inflation-adjusted returns. The piece shows SpaceX investors now dominate the 10 biggest VC checks of all time, eclipsing classic bets like eBay via Benchmark; many of these gains remain paper profits due to lock-ups, and Google-backed deals are noted as excluded from the top ten for methodological reasons.
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son says the AI revolution is about 50 times bigger than the dot-com boom and unveils a €75 billion plan to build AI infrastructure in France, including 5 GW of data-center capacity (with 3.1 GW in Hauts-de-France by 2031) in partnership with Schneider Electric, as the company positions France as Europe’s AI hub while expanding in the US; he also notes that any downturn could present a buying opportunity.
SoftBank has pledged up to €75bn to build a Europe‑largest network of AI computing clusters in France, starting with 3.1GW in Hauts‑de‑France by 2031 and a second 2GW phase, anchored by a Dunkirk facility with Schneider Electric. A full 5GW complex would cost about €75bn and be financed mainly through debt-based project finance, marking the center of Masayoshi Son’s AI infra push alongside OpenAI investments. The plan aims to position France as Europe’s AI infrastructure hub as Macron promotes Choose France, even as Europe lags the US and China in data‑centre development.