SoftBank Group Shares Rise as Fears About Potential AI Bubble Ease
By Kosaku Narioka
SoftBank Group shares rose, extending gains from the previous session, as market fears about a potential bubble in artificial-intelligence stocks have receded for now.
Shares were recently up 3.9% at 16,895 yen, equivalent to $107.97, on Thursday in Tokyo, after rising as much as 6.3% earlier. The stock rose 5.7% on Wednesday.
Semiconductor-related stocks were broadly higher on Thursday. Memory-chip maker Kioxia Holdings was 6.5% higher and chip-testing equipment maker Advantest rose 5.2%. The market benchmark Nikkei Stock Average was up 1.3%.
SoftBank Group's latest gains follow a 44% slide from its late-October peak. In addition to caution over the recent sharp ascent in artificial intelligence-related stocks, SoftBank's shares had been weighed by fears that Google may be pulling ahead of one of its key investees, privately-held OpenAI, in the AI race with the release of its latest Gemini 3 model.
SoftBank Group has invested about $12.2 billion in OpenAI so far and plans to invest an additional $22.5 billion in December to bring the total sum to $34.7 billion. SoftBank is set to hold an 11% stake in the ChatGPT maker following the planned investment next month. A recent deal with investors valued OpenAI at around $500 billion.
For the three months ended September, SoftBank Group's net profit more than doubled from a year earlier, driven by gains in its investment in the ChatGPT maker.
SoftBank Group's other key holdings include U.K. chip-design unit Arm Holdings and Japanese mobile-career SoftBank Corp., as well as stakes worth billions of dollars in T-Mobile US and Intel. SoftBank Group's market capitalization is about $154 billion.
Before the recent slide, SoftBank Group's stock had more than tripled from the end of May to its peak, driven by hopes that its investees will benefit from broader use of artificial intelligence. The stock remained up about 84% this year.
Write to Kosaku Narioka at kosaku.narioka@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 26, 2025 23:00 ET (04:00 GMT)
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