The founder of the SoftBank Group, Masayoshi Son, on Monday, downplayed the decision to offload the conglomerate’s overall stake of Nvidia, adding he “was crying” over parting with the shares.
At a forum in Tokyo on Monday, Son discussed the November announcement by SoftBank that the company had sold its holding in the US chip powerhouse for $5.83 billion.
Son reported that SoftBank would not have made the move if it did not require bankrolling for its upcoming AI investments, such as a major bet on OpenAI and data center projects.
Son said at the time of the FII Priority Asia forum that “I don’t want to sell a single share. I just had more need for money to invest in OpenAI and other projects. I was crying to sell Nvidia shares.”
Son’s remarks have been in line with those made by the analysts and other Softbank executives in November, who said that the sale was part of larger plans to enhance the AI war chest of SoftBank Vision Fund.
Softbank has increased its AI ambitions with a set of projects this year such as, including Stargate Project data centers and the acquisition of U.S. chip designer Ampere Computing.
At the beginning of this year, Son stated that SoftBank was “all in” on OpenAI and forecasted the AI company would someday be the most valued in the entire world.
However, that bet has thus far paid off in some dividends, with SoftBank reporting last month that its second-quarter net profit more than doubled to 2.5 trillion yen ($16.6 billion), fueled by valuation gains in its OpenAI holdings.
Therefore, the major AI bets came after growing concerns and jitters in markets over the possible AI bubble. In his Monday discussion, Son also countered the concerns by asserting that those who discuss an AI bubble are “not smart enough.”
He projected that “super [artificial] intelligence” and AI robots to produce at least 10 percent of the global gross domestic product in the long term, which he said would surpass trillions of dollars of investment in the technology.
