Japan’s SoftBank Group is the latest major Asian stock to surge on investor enthusiasm around artificial intelligence.
This week, shares of the technology-focused investment firm surged nearly 30% in two straight trading days as investors piled in.
The stock was turbocharged by reports that OpenAI and SB Energy — SoftBank’s energy and data-center subsidiary — are moving toward initial public offerings.
SoftBank’s share price surged nearly 20% on Thursday and closed 12% higher on Friday. The stock is up over 50% this year.
Investors have also piled into SoftBank because of its majority stake in Arm Holdings, whose shares have surged alongside the AI boom.
Arm — the British chip designer SoftBank took public in 2023 — now represents about 40% of SoftBank’s total asset value, according to Dan Baker, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, in a note last week.
SoftBank’s exposure to OpenAI has also ballooned. Morningstar estimates the company’s OpenAI stake is worth roughly $80 billion, or about 26% of SoftBank’s assets, after a series of aggressive investments into the ChatGPT maker.
SoftBank traded at an average discount to net asset value of about 50% from mid-2019 to mid-2025, but that gap has narrowed significantly over the past year — “perhaps a sign of strong investor appetite,” Baker wrote.
The rally marks a sharp reversal for SoftBank after years of volatility tied to its Vision Fund portfolio.
While the fund backed major winners including Uber and DoorDash, the collapse of WeWork and the 2022 tech selloff triggered massive writedowns and raised questions about SoftBank’s investment strategy. But it has since turned a corner.
The surge in SoftBank’s share price has boosted founder and CEO Masayoshi Son’s net worth by nearly 40% this year to $50.1 billion, making him the second-richest person in Japan, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
