SoftBank has bled over $100 billion in value since late October, after going all in on OpenAI and walking away from Nvidia. The company’s stock has collapsed about 40%, wiping out more than ¥16 trillion from its market cap.
The hit came as Alphabet dropped Gemini 3.0, spooking investors and raising fresh doubts about OpenAI’s position. Now traders treat SoftBank like a proxy for OpenAI, and the result is brutal.
Masayoshi Son thought he was buying the future. Instead, he’s watching his company sink as markets rethink how much they’re willing to pay for anything with the letters A and I in it.
SoftBank’s profit in Q2 had soared to ¥2.5 trillion off the back of a $14.6 billion paper gain from OpenAI. But that upside didn’t last. The same bet is now setting fire to SoftBank’s value as fast as it inflated it.
SoftBank spends billions while markets hit reverse
On Wednesday, SoftBank shares briefly jumped after it confirmed the $6.5 billion acquisition of Ampere Computing, a U.S.-based chip designer that builds processors for servers. That one pop aside, the spending spree isn’t slowing.
The company is staring down a $22.5 billion payment to OpenAI in December, part of its $32 billion total commitment to Sam Altman’s startup. It’s also trying to lock down a $5.4 billion deal for ABB’s robotics division.
Masayoshi sold off SoftBank’s holdings in Nvidia and Oracle to load up on AI infrastructure. Now he’s buying into chipmakers that he believes can deliver energy-efficient AI processing.
That includes Arm Holdings, which SoftBank owns nearly 90% of. Ampere builds on Arm’s architecture, and that’s where Son wants to push the hardware angle. But not everyone is buying that pitch.
Amir Anvarzadeh, equity strategist at Asymmetric Advisors, doesn’t see it the same way. He said, “Beyond its blind faith in going all in with its investments in OpenAI, what the market has totally ignored is the growing penetration of RISC-V in core designs of AI chips, which even Nvidia is adopting.”
RISC-V is open-source and rivals Arm. It’s been gaining traction, especially in China, where buyers are racing to reduce dependence on U.S.-linked tech. Amir warned, “That’s the next chip that may fall.”
Japanese AI stocks swing as investors flee OpenAI-linked names
The mess isn’t isolated to SoftBank. Stocks across Japan’s AI supply chain are feeling it too. After Meta was reported to be exploring Google’s Gemini AI chip, the market started to pull money away from names tied too closely to Nvidia.
Ibiden, which supplies substrates used in Nvidia chips, dropped about 4% this week on fears the chip giant could lose ground. The risk of reshuffling is now real for anyone exposed to Nvidia’s orders.
Others are riding the other side of the trade. Toppan Holdings gained 11%, boosted by its ties to Broadcom, a partner with Google on AI chip design. Advantest, a chip-testing firm, could also benefit.
Maito Yamamoto, chief analyst at Nissay Asset Management, said chip equipment makers could see a bump if buyers rotate toward Broadcom’s ecosystem.
Kazunori Tatebe, chief strategist at Daiwa Asset Management, spelled out what traders are already showing with their money: “The phase of indiscriminate buying of AI-related stocks has ended, and selection will become more stringent going forward.”
SoftBank’s strategy might’ve looked visionary a few months ago, but now it’s just bleeding cash in a market that’s stopped handing out free wins for AI bets.
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