Softbank Group Corp is building up stakes in Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the latest reflection of founder Masayoshi Son’s focus on the tools and hardware underpinning artificial intelligence (AI).
The Japanese technology investor raised its stake in Nvidia to about US$3 billion by the end of March, up from US$1 billion in the prior quarter, regulatory filings showed. It bought about US$330 million worth of TSMC shares and US$170 million in Oracle Corp, they showed.
Softbank’s signature Vision Fund has also monetized almost US$2 billion of public and private assets in the first half of this year, a person familiar with the fund’s activities said.
Photo: EPA
The Vision Fund prioritizes its returns on investment, and there is no particular pressure from Softbank to monetize its assets, said the person, who asked not to be named discussing private information. A representative of Softbank declined to comment.
At the heart of Softbank’s AI ambitions is chip designer Arm Holdings PLC. Son is gradually building a portfolio around the Cambridge, UK-based company with key industry players, seeking to catch up after largely missing a historic rally that has made Nvidia into a US$4 trillion behemoth and boosted its contract chipmaker TSMC near a US$1 trillion value.
“Nvidia is the picks and shovels for the gold rush of AI,” said Ben Narasin, founder and general partner of Tenacity Venture Capital.
Softbank’s purchase of the US company’s stock may buy more influence and access to Nvidia’s most sought-after chips, he said.
“Maybe he gets to skip the line,” he added.
Softbank should have benefited from that bet on Nvidia — at least on paper. Nvidia has gained about 90 percent in market value since hitting a year’s low in early April, while TSMC has climbed more than 40 percent.
Softbank’s market capitalization stands at about US$118 billion, a fraction of Nvidia’s US$4.4 trillion valuation and that of other tech companies most closely associated with AI progress.
The company parted with a 4.9 percent stake in Nvidia in early 2019 that would be worth more than US$200 billion today. The company’s attempts to buy back some Nvidia shares, alongside those of proxy TSMC, would help Son regain access to some of the most lucrative parts of the semiconductor supply chain.
The 67-year-old Softbank founder now seeks to play a more central role in the spread of AI through sweeping partnerships. These include the company’s US$500 billion Stargate data center foray with OpenAI, Oracle and Abu Dhabi-backed investment fund MGX. Son is also courting TSMC and others about taking part in a US$1 trillion AI manufacturing hub in Arizona.
As Arm’s intellectual property is used to power the majority of mobile chips and is increasingly used in server chips, Softbank could carve out a unique position without being a manufacturer itself, said Richard Kaye, co-head of Japan equity strategy at Comgest Asset Management Ltd and a long-time Softbank investor.
“I think he sees himself as the natural provider of AI semiconductor technology,” he said. “What Son really wants to do is capture the upstream and the downstream of everything.”
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
RSS