Softbank Group Corp founder Masayoshi Son has proposed setting up a US-Japan sovereign wealth fund aimed at making large investments in technology and infrastructure, the Financial Times reported, citing three unidentified people close to the situation.
Son has discussed the plan with US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, although it has not been formally proposed, the report said.
The joint fund would likely need about US$300 billion in initial capital, with significant leverage, to be effective, one person told the Financial Times.
Photo: Bloomberg
The fund would be jointly owned and run by the US Department of the Treasury and the Japanese Ministry of Finance, with each holding a significant stake, the report said.
The fund could also be opened to limited partner investors, potentially offering retail investors in Japan and the US a chance to participate.
Bessent has been looking for revenue streams for the US Treasury that do not involve raising taxes, and the fund could potentially provide a solution, a person briefed on the situation told the newspaper.
However, Bessent on Friday said US President Donald Trump paused plans to create a sovereign wealth fund as the president prioritizes paying down the national debt.
“I think the president has decided it’s on pause while we work on everything else that we’re doing now,” Bessent said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s Wall Street Week with David Westin. “He said the other day that we’ll probably spend more time paying down debt. He is laser-focused on paying down debt.”
Trump in February ordered a plan to create one of the biggest such funds in the world, suggesting it could be backed by monetizing government assets and used for strategic investments including critical minerals projects or stakes in companies such as TikTok.
Bessent at the time said that the fund could be up and running in 12 months.
However, the ambition has slid down the list of priorities after running into legal, financial and political realities. Instead, the administration is pivoting to a potentially simpler and limited investment vehicle using existing agencies that would not need congressional approval.
Bessent and US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, who Trump tasked with coming up with the proposal within 90 days, submitted their ideas earlier this month, but White House officials were not satisfied and a final plan was not presented to Trump for approval, people familiar with the situation said.
The Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show, which is to be held from Wednesday to Saturday at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, would showcase the latest in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven robotics and automation technologies, the organizer said yesterday. The event would highlight applications in smart manufacturing, as well as information and communications technology, the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robotics Association said. More than 1,000 companies are to display innovations in semiconductors, electromechanics, industrial automation and intelligent manufacturing, it said in a news release. Visitors can explore automated guided vehicles, 3D machine vision systems and AI-powered applications at the show, along
AI SERVER DEMAND: ‘Overall industry demand continues to outpace supply and we are expanding capacity to meet it,’ the company’s chief executive officer said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported that net profit last quarter rose 27 percent from the same quarter last year on the back of demand for cloud services and high-performance computing products. Net profit surged to NT$44.36 billion (US$1.48 billion) from NT$35.04 billion a year earlier. On a quarterly basis, net profit grew 5 percent from NT$42.1 billion. Earnings per share expanded to NT$3.19 from NT$2.53 a year earlier and NT$3.03 in the first quarter. However, a sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar since early May has weighed on the company’s performance, Hon Hai chief financial officer David Huang (黃德才)
FORECAST: The greater computing power needed for emerging AI applications has driven higher demand for advanced semiconductors worldwide, TSMC said The government-supported Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has raised its forecast for this year’s growth in the output value of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry to above 22 percent on strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. In its latest IEK Current Quarterly Model report, the institute said the local semiconductor industry would have output of NT$6.5 trillion (US$216.6 billion) this year, up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, an upward revision from a 19.1 percent increase estimate made in May. The strong showing of the local semiconductor industry largely reflected the stronger-than-expected performance of the integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing segment,
COLLABORATION: Softbank would supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture would make AI data center equipment, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) would operate a US factory owned by Softbank Group Corp, setting up what is in the running to be the first manufacturing site in the Japanese company’s US$500 billion Stargate venture with OpenAI and Oracle Corp. Softbank is acquiring Hon Hai’s electric-vehicle plant in Ohio, but the Taiwanese company would continue to run the complex after turning it into an artificial intelligence (AI) server production plant, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said yesterday. Softbank would supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture between the two companies would make AI data
RSS