Masayoshi Son, president and main enforcement serviceman of SoftBank Group Corp., speaks astatine the SoftBank World lawsuit successful Tokyo, Japan, connected Wednesday, July 16, 2025. Speaking via teleconference, Son and OpenAI main Sam Altman argued that advancing artificial quality would pb to caller jobs that are not yet imagined, and the advancement of robotics volition assistance kickstart a "self-improvement" loop. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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SoftBank Group laminitis Masayoshi Son connected Monday downplayed the determination to offload the conglomerate's full Nvidia stake, saying helium "was crying" implicit parting with the shares.
Speaking astatine a forum successful Tokyo Monday, Son addressed SoftBank's November disclosure that the steadfast had sold its holding successful the American spot darling for $5.83 billion.
According to Son, SoftBank wouldn't person made the determination if it didn't request to bankroll its adjacent artificial quality investments, including a large stake connected OpenAI and information halfway projects.
"I don't privation to merchantability a azygous share. I conscionable had much request for wealth to put successful OpenAI and different projects, Son said during the FII Priority Asia forum. "I was crying to merchantability Nvidia shares."
Son's comments are accordant with what analysts and different Softbank executives said successful November, describing the merchantability arsenic portion of broader efforts to bolster SoftBank Vision Fund's AI warfare chest.
SoftBank has doubled down connected its AI plans this twelvemonth with a bid of projects, including enactment connected Stargate Project information centers and the acquisition of U.S. spot designer Ampere Computing.
The Japanese elephantine could besides "potentially" summation its concern successful OpenAI depending connected the show of the ChatGPT shaper and the valuation of further rounds, a idiosyncratic acquainted with the substance previously told CNBC.
Earlier this year, Son said that SoftBank was "all in" connected OpenAI and predicted the AI startup would 1 time go the astir invaluable institution successful the world.
So far, that stake has reaped immoderate dividends, with SoftBank reporting past period that its second-quarter nett profit much than doubled to 2.5 trillion yen ($16.6 billion), driven by valuation gains successful its OpenAI holdings.
However, SoftBank's monolithic AI bets travel amid increasing fears and jitters successful markets astir a imaginable AI bubble.
In his Monday talk, Son besides pushed backmost against these concerns, arguing that those who speech astir an AI bubble are "not astute enough."
He predicted that "super [artificial] intelligence" and AI robots volition make astatine slightest 10% of planetary gross home merchandise implicit the agelong term, which helium said would outweigh trillions of dollars of concern into the technology.
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