SoftBank sells its entire Nvidia stake for $5.8 bn

Firm says the sale had nothing to do with Nvidia but was a financing measure

- BLOOMBERG

SoftBank Group Corp sold its entire stake in Nvidia Corp, pocketing $5.83 billion to help bankroll envisioned AI investments at a time investors are questioning the sheer amounts of capital chasing a technology with uncertain future returns.

The Nvidia stake sale highlights how founder Masayoshi Son needs money to chase a plethora of projects that range from Stargate data centers to AI robot manufacturing sites in the US. Its exit coincides with a growing debate about whether spending by big tech firms from Meta Platforms Inc to Alphabet Inc — expected to surpass $1 trillion in coming years — will produce commensurate returns. SoftBank is keen to become a leading player in that growing ecosystem, with plans to leverage stakes in sector linchpins from OpenAl to US chip designer Ampere Computing LLC. On Tuesday, SoftBank executives sidestepped questions about whether the industry is fomenting an AI investment bubble, and said the sale had nothing to do with Nvidia itself but was a necessary financing measure.