Japanese investment giant SoftBank reported a net loss for the quarter – it amounted to 1.12 trillion yen ($7 billion). Financial performance was negatively impacted by rising costs for the purchase of equipment for data centers designed for artificial intelligence, as well as a fall in Intel shares.
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For the six months ended September 30, the company also recorded a loss – it amounted to 597.2 billion yen ($3.7 billion). The company explained this indicator by changes in plans for the purchase of energy equipment for data center projects in the United States. Amid concerns about possible shortages and long delivery times, the company was forced to make up-front investments to ensure it received equipment to power its AI data centers in the US. The issue of energy supply remains one of the main obstacles to the construction of these facilities, since the power grid is overloaded with requests from large consumers, including data centers. As of the end of September, total payments for power equipment for US AI data centers reached $9.48 billion.
SoftBank’s net loss for the quarter amounted to 1.12 trillion yen ($7.08 billion). For comparison: the company completed the same period last year with a net profit of 2.5 trillion yen ($15.80 billion). Revenue for the quarter reached 2.22 trillion yen ($14.03 billion), while analysts had predicted 2.02 trillion yen ($12.77 billion). For the six months ended September 30, revenue grew 13.3%, driven by gains in telecom and AI computing.
The Vision Fund segment suffered a loss of 81.58 billion yen ($515.69 million) for the quarter. A year earlier, it generated a profit of 2.38 trillion yen ($15.04 billion). Vision Fund 1 showed an investment loss of $20 million, despite a profit of $1.3 billion from investments in ByteDance. The negative dynamics were caused by a fall in the quotations of public companies, including Coupang and Grab. Investment profit in the Vision Fund segment amounted to 85.45 billion yen ($550.15 million), while a year earlier this figure reached 2.81 trillion yen ($17.76 billion). Vision Fund 2 had investment income of 89.26 billion yen ($564.23 million).
At the end of September, SoftBank’s total investment in OpenAI was $54.6 billion, with a fair value of $99.6 billion, representing a total investment return of $45 billion. The financial results do not include the potential increase in OpenAI’s valuation following the new funding round, as this has not yet been formally announced. SoftBank may take this figure into account in its results for the current quarter.
Speaking about investments in AI infrastructure, the Japanese company noted the conclusion of a 20-year lease agreement with OpenAI, providing for the provision of 8 GW of capacity as part of a data center project in Ohio. In response to a question about the water consumption of the future data center in Texas, the company announced measures were being taken to reduce its consumption through a closed-loop cooling system with an air heat sink. SoftBank has announced plans to hire local talent and use local resources.
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