SoftBank Group Corp.

According to a Bloomberg report, SoftBank Group is in talks with several investment banks to raise approximately $10-20 billion (about 1.59-3.18 trillion yen) in debt related to its investment in OpenAI. This debt issuance is seen as part of the company's broader fundraising efforts related to OpenAI, as reported by Reuters.

OpenAI's head of data centers, Chris Malone, departed the company last week, becoming the fourth senior executive to leave ahead of the company's planned 2027 listing, the Wall Street Journal reported. Malone joined OpenAI in March 2025, shortly after the company unveiled Stargate, a joint venture with Oracle and SoftBank to build AI data-center capacity at scale. His exit follows the departures of Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser, Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap, and Fidji Simo, who served as second-in-command to CEO Sam Altman. Oracle, a core partner in the Stargate venture, saw its shares edge lower Tuesday on the news. OpenAI has raised its projected spending on computing power to $750 billion through 2030, up from an earlier estimate of roughly $600 billion, and this month signed a 10-gigawatt data-center lease in Ohio with SoftBank's SB Energy, with Nvidia agreeing to provide a guarantee of up to $105 billion to support that lease.

SoftBank Group plans a record ¥1 trillion, or $6.3 billion, retail bond sale in Japan, the biggest by any issuer in the country. The seven-year bonds are expected to be priced on September 4, with an indicative coupon range of 4.3% to 4.9%, according to a company filing. The issuance is SoftBank's largest ever as the conglomerate raises funds for its investment commitments to OpenAI. SoftBank has been ramping up AI investments through debt, bond sales, and asset disposals, including holdings in Nvidia and T-Mobile. Across Asia, companies are boosting AI infrastructure spending, such as Alibaba's $10.2 billion share placement to expand its full-stack AI capabilities.

Private equity is increasingly targeting utilities as the artificial intelligence boom reshapes the U.S. power grid. Representatives on both sides of the aisle are increasingly pushing back against hyperscalers who are developing massive data center campuses on local energy grids, driving up energy demand and therefore causing electricity prices to skyrocket for everyone, whether they benefit from the artificial intelligence boom or not. The Trump administration has attempted to resolve the issue by pushing the tech sector to provide its own energy sources to power its rapidly proliferating data centers. Amazon is currently building a gas-fired power plant in Texas that is set to become the single-biggest source of power-related emissions in the entire United States. Nvidia announced that it would team up with Japan's SoftBank and the United States government to build the country's largest fossil-fuel plant to power an OpenAI project in Ohio. Major utilities are rushing to sell off non-core chunks of their regulated businesses to raise cash, and willing to cut good deals with buyers, according to Semafor.

Seven & i Holdings has accepted investments of 100 billion yen each from SoftBank, PayPay, and Sumitomo Mitsui Card, totaling 300 billion yen. The aim is to accelerate convenience store reforms by bringing in outside capital, integrating the group's common ID "7iD" into "PayPay ID," and expanding the points-based economic sphere while promoting the use of AI and robot technology. Its domestic convenience store business has lagged FamilyMart and Lawson in growth, and through this partnership the company aims to create a "future-style convenience store."

Nvidia has agreed to provide more than $100B in credit support to backstop a massive new OpenAI data center campus in Pike County, Ohio. The project is being developed, owned, and operated by SB Energy, a SoftBank Group subsidiary, with OpenAI signing a 20-year lease as the anchor tenant, according to a report by the Financial Times. As part of the transaction, Nvidia will also make a $1.5B direct equity investment in SB Energy. Under the terms of the deal, Nvidia will serve as the exclusive supplier of AI computing systems for the site, potentially generating $150B to $200B in hardware revenue as the facility expands to house over 1M Nvidia chips. Separately, Broadcom is reportedly engaged in discussions with Blackstone and Apollo Global Management to raise more than $60B in debt in a deal that will benefit Anthropic, and Micron Technology showed off its new U.S.-based Micron Research Labs backed by a $10B investment.

SoftBank Group is preparing to issue approximately 1 trillion yen, or $6.26 billion, in seven-year corporate bonds targeting Japanese retail investors, which would be the largest such sale ever by a Japanese company. The offering comes as Nvidia's 5-year credit default swap spread climbed to 80.77 basis points as of August 19, surpassing its late-July peak and rising roughly 90% year-to-date. Long-term government yields in the U.S., Germany, and Japan have reached their highest levels in decades, with investors citing hyperscaler bond supply as a contributing factor. AI infrastructure debt now accounts for as much as 30% of net new issuance in some investment-grade indexes this year, according to private credit market commentary cited by Reuters. Japan's broader retail-targeted corporate bond market is on pace to hit a record 2.8 trillion yen this year, per Nikkei, but SoftBank's offering would dwarf anything attempted before. Oracle offers the starkest credit warning in the sector, with its 5-year CDS spread surpassing 200 basis points in July 2026, approximately four times the investment-grade corporate index and a level not seen since the 2008 financial crisis.

SoftBank Group disclosed in a 13F filing that Intel stock represented nearly 67% of its disclosed U.S. equity portfolio as of June 30, 2026, with the position totaling 86,956,522 shares valued at $12,141,739,167. The filing places Intel far ahead of SoftBank's next-largest U.S. holdings, with Symbotic stock at around $1.79 billion, or roughly 10% of the total, and T-Mobile U.S. stock at $1.68 billion, or about 9%, while the remainder of the portfolio, a collection of fintech names including Klarna, Chime, eToro, Nu Holdings, and Inter & Co, amounted to a marginal slice of the whole. The Intel position reflects a substantial escalation of SoftBank's existing exposure to the chipmaker, following a $2 billion strategic investment that closed in the third quarter of 2025. Intel's second-quarter fiscal 2026 results showed revenue of $16.128 billion, a 25.4% increase from the prior-year period, with the Data Center and AI segment posting a 59% gain to reach $6.262 billion, and the company set a third-quarter revenue outlook of $15.8 billion to $16.8 billion. SoftBank reported first-quarter net income of 347.3 billion yen, or approximately $2.2 billion, driven by a 1.3 trillion yen gain on Intel stock, which has risen close to 400% on a year-over-year basis, and the firm's cumulative investment in OpenAI is expected to reach approximately $64.6 billion upon completion of a third planned tranche in October 2026, representing an ownership stake of roughly 13%.

Nvidia is backing a massive artificial intelligence infrastructure development in Ohio that could ultimately require at least 10 gigawatts of new power generation. The chipmaker has partnered with SB Energy to secure land, power and data center shell capacity at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, where OpenAI will be the customer under a 20-year lease. The first phase is designed to provide 4.25 gigawatts of IT capacity, with Nvidia holding an option covering another 3.75 GW, bringing the project to 8 GW of AI computing capacity at full buildout. SB Energy, backed by SoftBank Group and OpenAI, will build, own and operate the data center infrastructure, while Nvidia will exclusively supply AI computing systems including GPUs, CPUs and networking equipment through its DSX AI factory platform. SB Energy and SoftBank plan to develop at least 10 GW of new electricity generation and invest at least $4.2 billion in regional grid infrastructure through a partnership with AEP Ohio. Nvidia will also invest $1.5 billion directly in SB Energy, joining SoftBank and OpenAI as investors. Development is expected to proceed in phases beginning in 2028, and OpenAI has added $40 million to an existing $40 million community benefits fund, bringing the initial fund to $80 million.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang pushed back Monday on the 'circular financing' label for Nvidia's support of OpenAI's massive Ohio AI buildout. Huang said OpenAI will pay the lease, and estimated OpenAI's broader infrastructure plans could represent roughly $600 billion in Nvidia compute through 2030. Nvidia is investing $1.5 billion in SB Energy, the SoftBank-backed developer that will build, own and operate the physical infrastructure at PORTS-Pike, with Nvidia's credit support covering the initial 4.25 GW of an 8 GW compute capacity agreement. Huang framed Nvidia's support as a way to secure scarce infrastructure rather than finance demand, noting that if OpenAI leaves the Ohio site, SB Energy would first seek another tenant or buyer, with Nvidia covering any remaining loss in value up to $105 billion. Nvidia agreed in February to invest $30 billion in OpenAI, and Huang said each hardware generation at the Ohio site could involve about 1.5 million Nvidia GPUs and generate $150 billion to $200 billion in revenue.

US semiconductor giant Nvidia announced it will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy, a unit of SoftBank Group, and provide guarantees of up to $105 billion for a data center in Ohio in the US Midwest that SB Energy is building for OpenAI. Nvidia will be the sole semiconductor supplier for the facility in Pike County, Ohio, which will have total capacity of up to 8 gigawatts, with an initial 800 megawatts expected to come online in 2028. OpenAI will lease the site for 20 years and pay rent, but if the company defaults, Nvidia will cover the difference between the guaranteed minimum value and the amount the owner can recover through re-leasing or sale. Overall, Nvidia could generate up to $600 billion in revenue from OpenAI by 2030 by selling it 16 gigawatts of computing capacity, including a 3.75 gigawatt expansion at the Ohio site. SB Energy and SoftBank plan to build at least 10 gigawatts of new power generation in Ohio, invest $4.2 billion in transmission infrastructure, and support AI data centers. SB Energy was founded in 2019 and has also received investment from OpenAI.

A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows that SoftBank Group acquired a new stake in U.S. financial giant Capital One during the second quarter and sold 71.5% of its holdings in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. SoftBank Group purchased 276,811 shares of Capital One in the quarter, valued at 55.5 million dollars at the end of June. It also acquired 10,718 shares of Life360, which provides location-sharing services, valued at 488,500 dollars. Meanwhile, it sold 1.4 million TSMC shares for 269.8 million dollars, equivalent to 71.5% of its stake in the company.

OpenAI's annualized revenue has surpassed 40 billion US dollars, or about 1.3 trillion baht, nearly doubling from the end of 2025 as it prepares to list on Wall Street. Bloomberg reports that key drivers include AI software for coding, subscription revenue, and an advertising business that is just getting started. Meanwhile, Greg Brockman, co-founder and president of OpenAI, said the annualized revenue rate in July rose more than 20 percent from the previous month. The company recently raised a massive 110 billion dollar funding round at a pre-money valuation of 730 billion dollars in February, with Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank as major investors.

Nvidia has signed seven Japanese industrial giants into its new physical AI coalition, locking in a massive, long-lived stream of demand for its chips and software. Companies including Fujitsu, FANUC, Yaskawa Electric, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Hitachi, NEC, SoftBank, Sony, and Kubota intend to build on Nvidia's Cosmos, Isaac, Metropolis, and Jetson platforms as part of a Cosmos Coalition focused on physical AI. Nvidia is also partnering with Noetra, a Japanese AI consortium backed by Sony, SoftBank, Honda, and dozens of other firms, to build what it calls the world's first national infrastructure for physical AI, centered on a Vera Rubin AI factory with 13,750 Vera CPUs and 27,500 Rubin GPUs delivering about 140 megawatts of compute capacity. Japan's industry ministry expects this to help the country capture 30% of the global AI robotics market by 2040, and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's government plans to mobilize more than 370 trillion yen, or 2.3 trillion dollars, in combined public and private investment by 2040 across physical AI, semiconductors, and data centers. Noetra's own roadmap calls for roughly 1 trillion yen, or 6.3 billion dollars, of sovereign AI spending over five years to develop domestic foundation models for robots and industrial AI.

Global markets rose this week as US stock indexes gained on strong tech earnings and a Treasury rebound, while geopolitical tensions pushed crude oil toward $78 per barrel. The S&P 500 added 3%, the Nasdaq rose 3.9%, and the Dow gained 1.8%. In Europe, the STOXX index ended 1.2% higher, with Germany's DAX up 1.8% and France's CAC up 1.5%. Among major corporate news, BP agreed to acquire Woodside Energy's 70% stake in the Calypso natural gas project offshore Trinidad and Tobago, boosting its interest to 100%, and beat second-quarter estimates. SoftBank Group reported stronger-than-expected earnings, HSBC posted solid first-half results and a $1 billion buyback, and Novo Nordisk raised its full-year outlook for the second time this year. In Asia, China's trade surplus widened to $112.5 billion, while Japan conducted a rare coordinated yen-buying operation with the US Treasury.

Formlabs, a US 3D printer maker backed by SoftBank Group, is in early-stage discussions with potential advisors for an initial public offering. The listing could raise around 500 million dollars, and the company was valued at about 2 billion dollars in a 2021 funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The talks are ongoing, and details of the IPO, including the fundraising size, may change. Founded in 2011, Formlabs has sold over 130,000 3D printers to a wide range of industries from medical research to aerospace manufacturing, and employs more than 750 people across eight locations.

Nvidia plans to invest up to $3 billion in Lancium, an energy infrastructure company backed by Blackstone, according to The Information. The chipmaker will initially invest $2 billion for a roughly 20% stake, with an additional $1 billion contingent on Lancium meeting certain targets including grid hookups. The deal values Lancium at approximately $10 billion in enterprise value and is expected to support its expansion ahead of a potential initial public offering next year. Lancium owns the 1.2 GW Lancium Clean Campus in Abilene, Texas, which serves as the first site of the Stargate project, an artificial intelligence infrastructure initiative led by OpenAI and SoftBank that aims to invest $500 billion over four years.

PayPay announced a capital alliance with Seven & i Holdings, SEVEN-ELEVEN JAPAN, SoftBank, and LY Corporation to integrate digital payment and physical retail experiences in Japan. The partnership aims to combine PayPay's payment platform and 75 million users with Seven & i's roughly 22,000 SEVEN-ELEVEN stores and customer data to build personalized shopping and digital financial services. The alliance is described as a long-term growth initiative for all partners and a material development for PayPay shareholders.

Nokia insiders have been quietly accumulating shares, signaling confidence in the company's AI-driven network strategy backed by a $1 billion investment from Nvidia. In late May, Victoria Hanrahan, chief of staff to the CEO, bought 44,682 shares on the NYSE at an average price of about $15.81 per share, a purchase worth just over $700,000. On July 24, senior manager Patrik Hammarén acquired 43,293 shares in Helsinki at around 8.44 euros, board member Timo Ihamuotila picked up 60,000 shares across multiple European venues at roughly 8.45 euros, and senior manager Pallavi Mahajan bought 62,000 shares on the NYSE at about $9.55. The buying spree follows Nokia's October 2025 strategic partnership with Nvidia to pioneer an AI platform for 6G, which includes Nvidia's $1 billion equity investment at $6.01 per share and plans to integrate Nvidia GPUs into Nokia's base stations. T-Mobile US has agreed to trial Nokia's AI RAN designs starting in 2026, and Nokia is building an AI RAN center in Dallas with partners like KDDI and SoftBank to develop AI-powered radio networks.

SoftBank Group has secured a $10 billion loan linked to its OpenAI holding, providing fresh liquidity while concentrating its balance sheet around a debt-financed artificial-intelligence bet. The facility, arranged by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Mizuho Securities, Apollo Global Funding and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking, is expected to be drawn in August for general corporate purposes and is guaranteed by SoftBank, with principal due in August 2028. The loan follows a $40 billion bridge facility primarily to fund additional OpenAI investments, of which SoftBank invested $10 billion in April and another $10 billion in July, with a final $10 billion tranche scheduled for October that would lift its cumulative OpenAI investment to $64.6 billion and its ownership to roughly 13%. At June 30, SoftBank valued its $44.6 billion cumulative OpenAI investment at $89.6 billion, implying $45 billion in unrealized gains, though finance costs nearly doubled to 328.7 billion yen and attributable net income fell 17.7% to 347.3 billion yen. Valuation protections in the new loan mean a sharp decline in OpenAI's worth could force SoftBank to provide cash collateral or repay early.

SoftBank Group Corp reported a net profit of 347.33 billion yen in the first quarter of fiscal 2025, down 17.7 percent from the same period a year earlier, but exceeding analyst forecasts of 165.83 billion yen. The result was supported by gains from its stake in Intel and investments in the Vision Fund, which helped offset rising costs from massive investments in artificial intelligence, including its investment in OpenAI. Revenue came in at 2.02 trillion yen, up 10.9 percent. The company did not provide future earnings guidance, citing ongoing uncertainty in the business environment.

Asian stock markets opened in positive territory on August 5, 2026, tracking a continued rally on Wall Street. Investor anxiety eased amid signs of progress in negotiations between the United States and Iran, which could lead to an end to the conflict and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. As a result, WTI crude oil prices tumbled more than 5 percent in New York trading the previous night, reducing inflationary pressures and fueling buying in technology and artificial intelligence stocks across the region. Japan's Nikkei index opened 0.95 percent higher at 64,565.27 points. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index opened up 0.15 percent at 25,890.99 points. Bucking the trend, China's Shanghai Composite index slipped 0.19 percent to 3,815.12 points. South Korea's KOSPI index surged 4 percent, and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.46 percent. Semiconductor and AI stocks led the market, with SoftBank in Japan jumping more than 10 percent, SK hynix in South Korea soaring 6.9 percent, and Samsung Electronics gaining over 4 percent. Investors are also watching the release of US non-farm payrolls data on Friday, August 7, which could influence the Federal Reserve's monetary policy direction.

Most Asian stock markets rose this morning, with the Nikkei 225 index surging more than 3%, following the positive close of US markets overnight. This came after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent indicated that the United States and Iran may soon reach an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The Nikkei 225 climbed 2,000.57 points, or 3.13%, to 65,958.10. South Korea's KOSPI index jumped 3.79%, while Taiwan's TAIEX gained 3.07%. Technology stocks in Asia saw significant gains, with SoftBank Group soaring over 10%, and Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix each rising more than 4%, after the US semiconductor index posted its biggest four-day surge since 2020. Brent crude oil prices continued to decline, hovering near 79 dollars per barrel, amid prospects of a temporary deal that would ease energy supply concerns.

Seven & i Holdings has secured 300 billion yen, equivalent to 1.91 billion dollars, from SoftBank, PayPay and Sumitomo Mitsui Card through a third-party allotment of treasury shares. Each investor will subscribe 100 billion yen for 48.30 million common shares. The capital collaboration supports broader business partnerships combining 7-Eleven's network of more than 20,000 stores in Japan with the partners' digital platforms, customer bases and technology capabilities. Near-term plans include linking Seven & i's 7iD membership platform with PayPay accounts and allowing customers to earn and redeem PayPay Points and V Points at 7-Eleven stores, while longer term the partners will explore using shared customer data to personalise offers and apply SoftBank's AI, robotics and digital transformation tools to store operations.

Amazon has completed its investment into OpenAI with the additional $35 billion tranche, The Information reported. OpenAI said in February that it had raised $110 billion at a $730 billion valuation, with $50 billion coming from Amazon and $30 billion apiece from Nvidia and SoftBank. Amazon initially provided OpenAI with $15 billion in February, and the remaining $35 billion was set to be invested when certain conditions were met. The companies did not specify those conditions, but previous reports indicated the additional money could be tied to an OpenAI IPO or its achievement of artificial general intelligence. OpenAI disclosed last month that it had confidentially filed to go public.

Seven & i Holdings has announced it will dispose of treasury shares to SoftBank, PayPay, and Sumitomo Mitsui Card Corporation as allottees. The total amount will be around 300 billion yen. A notification has been filed with the Kanto Local Finance Bureau.

The Nikkei 225 surged, closing up 4.03% from the previous trading day at 64,362.02. Strong earnings from AI and semiconductor stocks, along with gains in major shares, lifted the index, which at one point rose 5.65% to 65,364.73. The Bank of Japan decided to keep its policy rate unchanged at its monetary policy meeting, passing without surprise as expected by the market. Among individual stocks, Tokyo Electron and Oriental Land jumped sharply, Panasonic Holdings ended at a bid price near its daily limit up, and Advantest and SoftBank Group also posted significant gains. The TOPIX rose 1.29% to 4,003.30 points, and trading value on the Prime Market was 10.106984 trillion yen.

The Nikkei 225 started trading on the 31st at 61,957.10, up 89.67 points from the previous day, extending its gains. Following a sharp rally in US markets the day before, where major indices surged—particularly the Nasdaq Composite, which rose 2.77%, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which jumped 8.19%—tech and semiconductor stocks soared. That momentum carried into the Tokyo market, with AI-related and semiconductor names such as Advantest, SoftBank Group, and Tokyo Electron attracting buyers. Meanwhile, the yen strengthened to around 160.20 per dollar, weighing on export-oriented shares. Investors also held back from aggressive buying ahead of the Bank of Japan's monetary policy decision. However, buying was dominant at the open. By sector, non-ferrous metals, glass and ceramics products, and banking were among the top gainers, while pharmaceuticals and transportation equipment were among the top decliners.

SoftBank Group is bid. The positive sentiment follows Microsoft's strong earnings in the US market the previous day, driven by robust growth in its Azure cloud business, which sent its shares up over 15 percent, along with a 7 percent rise in subsidiary Arm Holdings. Improving investor sentiment has spurred buying in tech stocks, and Amazon, which reported earnings after the close, also surged in after-hours trading on strong cloud growth. These cues have prompted buying in SoftBank Group, which is making large-scale investments in AI infrastructure.

NTT Docomo and SoftBank announced on the 30th that communication disruptions caused by the earthquake in Kumamoto Prefecture have been restored. In addition to repairing faults in the transmission lines to base stations, normal voice and data communications are now available via the Starlink satellite network and other means.