SoftBank stakes in Nvidia, TSMC show Son’s focus on AI gear

Kiyoshi Ota—Bloomberg via Getty ImagesSoftBank Group Corp. is building up stakes in Nvidia Corp. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the reflection of Masayoshi Son’s focus on the tools and hardware underpinning artificial intelligence

The Japanese nology investor raised its stake in Nvidia to $3 billion by the end of March, up from $1 billion in the prior quarter, according to regulatory filings

That’s while SoftBank’s signature Vision Fund has monetized almost $2 billion of public and private assets in the first half of 2025, according to a person familiar with the fund’s activities

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

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’s made Nvidia into a $4 trillion behemoth and boosted its contract chipmaker TSMC near a $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, referring to a concerted effort by the world’s largest nology companies to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to get ahead

SoftBank’s purchase of the U.S. 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.” SoftBank, which reports quarterly earnings Thursday, should’ve benefited from that bet on Nvidia—at least on paper

That’s helping to make up for missing out on much of Nvidia’s post-ChatGPT rally—one of the biggest of all time

Crippling losses at the Vision Fund also hampered SoftBank’s ability to be an early investor in generative AI

The company’s attempts to buy back some Nvidia s, alongside those of xy 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

As Arm’s intellectual perty 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, according to Richard Kaye, co-head of Japan equity strategy at Comgest Asset Management and a long-time SoftBank investor. “I think he sees himself as the natural vider of AI semiconductor nology,” he said. “What Son really wants to do is capture the up and the down of everything.” Investors have cheered Son’s audacious plans, while analysts say they expect SoftBank to report a swing back to a net income in the June quarter

SoftBank s marked a record high last month

Son, however, remains dissatisfied, according to people close to the billionaire

Son sees the big jects in the U.S. as having the potential to help SoftBank leapfrog the current leaders in AI to become a trillion-dollar or bigger company, they said

Son, who in the past has seen Washington hamper or derail merger plans the union of Arm and Nvidia, seeks to leverage his relationship with Donald Trump and is arranging frequent meetings with White House officials

Those efforts are now critical as AI and semiconductors become geopolitical flash points

SoftBank’s plan to buy Ampere is facing a be by the Federal Trade Commission

Attention at its June quarter earnings will be on what other assets SoftBank might sell down to help it secure the liquidity it needs to double down on hardware investments

In the year March, the Vision Fund’s exits included DoorDash Inc. and View Inc., as well as cloud security company Wiz Inc. and enterprise software startup Peak, even as SoftBank bought up the stakes in Nvidia, TSMC and Oracle. “We’re after AI using an array of startups and group companies,” Son told holders in June. “We have one goal,” he said. “We’re going to become the No. 1 platformer in artificial super intelligence.”