SoftBank Faces $2.4B Loss While Advancing AI Initiatives with OpenAI Partnership

SoftBank Group suffered a major quarterly loss of 369.2 billion yen ($2.4 billion) due to decreases in the market value of its Vision Fund investments. The Vision Fund unit sustained a 309.9-billion-yen loss from investments in Coupang and Didi Global that changed in value negatively. The financial issues pose a major problem for Masayoshi Son since he wants to start large AI projects including his $500 billion Stargate initiative.

SoftBank continues investing heavily in AI by launching new business projects. SoftBank formed SB OpenAI Japan and worked with OpenAI to develop Cristal Intelligence as an enterprise-specific AI system letting them enter the Japanese market. SoftBank builds an advanced AI data center for Nvidia which will start running operations at Sakai in 2026. When Stargate AI began operations they gained backing from Oracle and MGX of the UAE along with assistance from former US President Donald Trump during their launch event with OpenAI.

SoftBank tries many strategies to find investment sources particularly for their major Stargate operation. The Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Sharon Chen expects SoftBank to invest under $5 billion into the $100 billion joint venture due to its 10% equity limit. The debt payments for existing obligations will affect the speed at which he can access funds. Despite budget problems and investment difficulties in ByteDance and eFishery CEO Masayoshi Son keeps believing in AI because he predicts it will reach advanced intelligence faster.

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