SoftBank, a major player in the Japanese technology industry, announced on Tuesday that it has sold its Nvidia stock, collecting $5.8 billion for other investments.
Additionally, compared with a year ago, it said its earnings in the first half of the current fiscal year had almost tripled.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. announced in October that it sold its interest in Silicon Valley-based Nvidia, indicating a change in focus toward OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, an AI chatbot.
According to SoftBank, its earnings from April to September skyrocketed to almost $13 billion. According to the company, its revenues for the six months increased 7.7% year over year to $24 billion.
Because it makes investments in a variety of projects, notably through its tech-focused Vision Funds, the company’s fortunes frequently change. Lately, those have paid off.
Masayoshi Son, chairman of SoftBank; President Donald Trump; Sam Altman of OpenAI; and Larry Ellison of Oracle announced a significant investment of up to $500 billion in the Stargate artificial intelligence project in February.
OpenAI has received tens of billions of dollars from SoftBank. Additionally, the two businesses intend to offer AI services in Japan.
Son’s change in approach is reflected in the sale of SoftBank’s Nvidia stock, which also generates a handsome return for his business due to the recent increase in Nvidia’s market valuation.
Three months after breaking the $4 trillion barrier, Nvidia recently became the first $5 trillion corporation. It intends to invest $100 billion in OpenAI as part of a collaboration that would increase OpenAI’s processing capacity by adding at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia AI data centers.
A large portion of this year’s share price increase has been fueled by the chip manufacturer and other victors in the artificial intelligence technology rush.
Critics compare the AI frenzy to the dot-com bubble that burst in 2000, claiming that the stock prices of the tech titans have risen too high and too quickly.
Nvidia and SoftBank continue to have a close relationship because SoftBank uses Nvidia technology in a number of its investments.
Additionally, SoftBank has interests in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Arm Holdings, computer chip manufacturers that, like Nvidia, are profiting handsomely from the development of AI.
The value of SoftBank stocks has almost doubled over the last 12 months. On Tuesday, they increased by almost 2%.
Early Tuesday, Nvidia’s stock dropped 1.3% in premarket trading. They increased by 5.8% on Monday.
