Japan\u2019s SoftBank Group reported Tuesday that net profit more than doubled in the second quarter thanks to a boom in AI-related share prices that has fuelled fears of a market bubble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The tech investment giant \u2014 a major backer of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI \u2014 logged a net profit of 2.5 trillion yen ($16.2 billion) in July-September, up from 1.2 trillion yen in the same period last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SoftBank also announced it sold $5.8 billion worth of shares in US chip giant Nvidia last month, after the quarter had ended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group\u2019s earnings often swing dramatically because it invests heavily in tech start-ups and semiconductor firms, whose stocks are volatile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In recent months optimism over the promise of AI technology has sparked a rush of multi-billion-dollar deals \u2014 sending tech shares soaring worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wall Street\u2019s tech-rich Nasdaq index has surged 25 percent since May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that has fed concerns of a market bubble that could eventually burst, like the dot-com boom that imploded at the turn of the millennium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fears that AI stock valuations are too high sparked a market sell-off last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nvidia, whose chips are used to train and power generative AI systems, recently became the world\u2019s first company valued above $5 trillion, though its market cap has since receded to around $4.8 trillion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SoftBank did not give a reason for the Nvidia stock sale in its earnings statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Bloomberg News said it could reflect plans by the Japanese company\u2019s flamboyant founder Masayoshi Son to boost his own influence in the AI field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Son, 68, believes \u201cartificial superintelligence\u201d is on the horizon, which will herald a technological revolution with new inventions and medicine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He appeared alongside US President Donald Trump at the White House in January when SoftBank teamed up with OpenAI and cloud giant Oracle to lead the $500 billion Stargate project to build AI infrastructure in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By some estimates, OpenAI has signed approximately $1 trillion worth of infrastructure deals in 2025, including a $300 billion Oracle agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SoftBank stock has \u201chad a strong run\u201d itself, said a Jefferies equity research published last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe recent surge appears to be driven by excitement around its exposure to OpenAI,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The firm has soared more than 140 percent so far in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Jefferies also listed some reasons for caution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhile OpenAI has strong consumer visibility, its share in (the) enterprise market is tiny. Its transition from non-profit to for-profit remains unresolved, and its relationship with Microsoft is still evolving,\u201d the note said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And \u201cthe competitive landscape is intense, with Google, Anthropic, Grok, and others investing heavily\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SoftBank said last month it would buy Swiss-Swedish firm ABB Robotics for nearly $5.4 billion as part of its plans to develop so-called physical AI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Japan\u2019s SoftBank Group reported Tuesday that net profit more than doubled in the second quarter thanks to a boom in AI-related share prices that has fuelled fears of a market bubble. The tech investment giant \u2014 a major backer of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI \u2014 logged a net profit of 2.5 trillion yen ($16.2 billion) in July-September, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8879,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222],"tags":[421,3715,2091,3832],"class_list":["post-8878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-ai","tag-boom","tag-japan","tag-stock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8880,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8878\/revisions\/8880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}