The giant OpenAI stake and the Stargate AI infrastructure (2025)
An all-in bet on the information revolution
The heart of this decision lies in fixing OpenAI and AI infrastructure as the true horse of the information revolution and concentrating SoftBank Group’s capital there. The company, turned into an investment company by the ARM acquisition and the Vision Fund, poured capital into a single field through two entrances: direct stakes in the model-development company, and funding for Stargate, which carries its computing base. Its stake in OpenAI alone swelled to $64.6 billion cumulatively in under a year, and consolidated net profit for the year ended March 2026 topping ¥5 trillion mirrors what this concentration looks like when it turns well.
Concentration, though, is on its reverse side a surrender of diversification. As long as the value of OpenAI and AI infrastructure keeps rising, valuation gains enrich the group’s results; but should the AI boom cool, losses rebound by the very same path. And because a considerable part of the investment is financed against collateral such as its own ARM shares, a fall in AI-related stocks could reach as far as its cash flow. Whether this is a bet aiming for winner-takes-all or an excessive risk of wagering too much on a single technology — at the time of writing the answer is not in, and the fate of SoftBank Group hangs on whether the AI investment now underway bears fruit.
Revenue and net margin, FY2020–FY2026
Revenue in ¥ bn (bars) and net margin in % (line), for the years around the decision. Shaded columns are FY2025 onwards — after it was taken.
Source: securities reports
Read the full dossier in Japanese →
The Japanese edition carries the complete record of this decision — the situation that forced it, the options weighed, what actually followed, and the sources behind every claim.
Other key decisions at SoftBank Group
- 1981 Founding Nihon SoftBank: a PC-software wholesaling business (1981)
- 1996 The Yahoo Japan joint venture with America’s Yahoo (1996)
- 2000 Shrinking the balance sheet through the dot-com crash (2000)
- 2001 Entering ADSL, and the Yahoo! BB crisis (2001)
- 2016 Buying Britain’s ARM: a record acquisition for the IoT and AI age (2016)
- 2017 Forming the SoftBank Vision Fund (2017)
Yen amounts are converted at the average rate of each figure’s own year — not today’s rate; the revenue chart is shown in yen. Exchange rates & sources — the full ¥/US$ table →
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- Sources are primarily each company’s securities reports and other public filings, but errors and omissions may remain.
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