Asian semiconductor and technology stocks resumed their slide Wednesday, tracking overnight losses on Wall Street after a brief rebound in chipmakers lost steam amid lingering concerns over stretched artificial intelligence-related valuations.

Japan’s Softbank Group plunged 10% amid a broader decline in tech names and after efforts to secure at least $6 billion through a margin loan backed by its OpenAI stake hit a snag, according to Bloomberg News. The Japanese tech investment giant is exploring alternative funding options, though it may revisit the loan at a later date.

Japanese chip equipment makers Advantest and Renesas Electronics dropped 3.8% and 3.4%, respectively.

In South Korea, memory chip major SK Hynix dropped over 8%, while Samsung Electronics fell 7.45%. Battery maker Samsung SDI declined more than 5%, while display panel producer LG Display slid nearly 9%.

Taiwan’s chip sector was also under pressure. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest contract chipmaker, fell about 2%, while Apple supplier Hon Hai Precision Industry lost more than 4%.

The declines followed a weaker session on Wall Street, where the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.97% and the S&P 500 slipped 0.26%. A rally in semiconductor stocks that had helped fuel gains a day earlier quickly faded, with the iShares Semiconductor ETF dropping 1%.

AI-related fundraising appears to be diverting money away from existing technology stocks. Upcoming listings such as SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI could absorb investor capital that previously flowed into publicly traded tech companies, potentially weighing on the sector.

OpenAI confidentially filed for an initial public offering on Monday, boosting excitement around artificial intelligence-related investments. Meanwhile, SpaceX is scheduled to begin trading on Friday following what is expected to be the largest IPO on record. While some investors see the listing as another catalyst for the AI rally, others worry its $1.75 trillion valuation could signal overheating in the sector.

Andrew Jackson, equity strategist at Ortus Advisors, said the latest volatility in technology shares could prompt investors to rotate into defense names, particularly in Japan, where the government is expected to strengthen its focus on military preparedness. 

“With retail punters gnashing their teeth and looking for something new to play with, heavies could snap back into focus after their recent pullback,” Jackson said, citing defense contractors Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, IHI Corp. and Japan Steel Works as potential beneficiaries.

Shares of SoftBank Group fell more than 11% following an overnight sell-off in the U.S. market on the back of wider profit taking in the tech sector. Other Asian tech giants, including TSMC and Foxconn, also saw their share prices fall.

While the Japanese investment giant recently overtook Toyota Motor as Japan’s most valuable company, there are market concerns over SoftBank’s high-risk bets on AI, even as its share price has risen about 70% year-to-date on investor enthusiasm over the new technology.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son told CNBC he expects the AI revolution to be 50 times larger than the dot-com revolution of the 2000s.

“Now, if you look at the history, electronics and motorization crashed in 1929, but went up for many, many years, for the next 100 years after that … so there may be some correction, but that will be the best investment opportunity to me,” Son said on Monday.

The market appears “to become fixated on short-term momentum, and less interested, or unable, to map out the long-term trajectory with detailed assumptions,” according to a recent investor note by Deutsche Bank analyst Peter Milliken.

Over in South Korea, Samsung and SK Hynix saw their shares decline by 1.25% and 2.75% respectively amid some profit taking, after both companies each crossed a market valuation of $1 trillion in May.

Taiwan’s TSMC was down 1.65% while Foxconn fell more than 4%.

Overnight in the U.S., chip major Nvidia fell 3.62%, while Alphabet lost 0.79%. Amazon lost 2.5%.

On Wednesday, SoftBank sold a 3.25% stake of Indian eyewear maker Lenskart via its affiliate ​SVF II Lightbulb (Cayman), offloading 56.5 million ⁠shares at 508.55 Indian rupees ​each ($5.32). This sets the transaction value at around 28.73 ​billion rupees.

SoftBank’s shares last traded 11.3% lower at 7,377 yen.

—CNBC’s Lee Ying Shan and Sawdah Bhaimiya contributed to the report.

Hello, this is Leonie Kidd writing to you from London. Welcome to today’s edition of the Daily Open newsletter.

Chatting to my colleagues in the London newsroom this Monday morning, we remarked how there appears to be two parallel markets at play.

There is an AI-fueled bull market driving stocks from Wall Street to Japan to record highs, as every inch of the AI stack is scrutinized for investment opportunities.

Conversely, there is the geopolitically driven world of risk, which remains volatile as developments taking place far from Silicon Valley keep assets like oil swinging from session to session.

Each day, these market forces jostle for the top spot in investors’ minds – which do you think it is today?

Investment juggernaut Softbank has become Japan’s most valuable firm. Shares rallied through the Asian trading session on Monday, propelling the Nikkei 225 above 67,000 for the first time.

The group, led by CEO Masayoshi Son, has made a €75 billion AI infrastructure commitment to France, its largest investment in Europe. He described the country as “a leading AI infrastructure hub in Europe.”

CNBC will speak exclusively to Masayoshi Son from Paris later this morning. Watch here on CNBC Pro.

Staying within the AI stack, Nvidia is pushing into PCs with a new ARM-based chip for Microsoft, Dell and HP laptops. During a keynote address at Taiwan’s Computex conference on Monday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unveiled a new N1X processor made alongside Microsoft.

“Microsoft and Nvidia are going to reinvent the PC,” Huang said. “This is the first completely re-engineered, reinvented line of PCs that has happened in 40 years.”

Across broader markets, an escalation in hostilities in Iran is driving oil prices higher. U.S. Central Command announced that it had conducted “self-defense” strikes on Iranian targets throughout the weekend, while Israel ordered troops to push deeper into Lebanon.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday that he is in “no hurry” to make a deal with Iran, as the war dragged into its fourth month.

Over the weekend, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth addressed the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore and gave a stark warning to his international peers: “Allies who refuse to step up and carry their own weight for our collective defense will face a clear shift in how we do business.” Read more of the key quotes from that meeting here.

Stocks have started the month of June on a broadly positive note. In the Asia-Pacific session, South…

Japan’s SoftBank Group plans to invest 45 billion euros ($53 billion) over the next five years to build artificial intelligence infrastructure in France, the company said on Sunday.

The tech giant said the commitment is part of a 75-billion-euro program to roll out 5 GW of AI data center capacity in France.

Softbank said the initial phase of the plan involves building 3.1 GW of AI data centers in the northern Hauts-de-France region by 2031, including in Dunkirk, Bosquel and Bouchain.

“The commitment marks SoftBank Group’s largest AI infrastructure investments in Europe,” Softbank said in a statement. “It is designed to support the rapid growth of artificial intelligence by expanding access to high-performance compute capacity in France.”

The investment plans are due to be formally announced on Monday.

“AI is entering a new era, and the countries that build the infrastructure for this transformation will shape the future of technology, industry and society,” said Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son. “SoftBank is proud to make this major commitment to France. With its industrial capabilities, talent base and national ambition, France is uniquely positioned to become a leading AI infrastructure hub in Europe.”

Softbank said it would partner with French engineering company Schneider Electric to develop a large-scale industrial production cluster in Dunkirk as part of the buildout.

Softbank’s shares have risen more than 70% in 2026 so far on expectations its investments in AI infrastructure will reap big rewards.

The Japanese company’s fortunes are closely tied to the AI boom through its stake in Arm Holdings, whose chip designs are used in AI servers and data centers powered by Nvidia systems, and its investments in OpenAI.

Softbank has plowed more than $30 billion into OpenAI, with its investment gains in the company totaling $45 billion in the year ended March.

Europe’s high energy costs have become a major stumbling block in its bid to become a global AI super power, as the U.S. and China dominate the AI boom.

The region is looking to get ahead in the AI arms race by ramping up compute capacity and building out the critical infrastructure needed for the technology. But power-hungry data centers mean investments are particularly sensitive to the cost of energy, and Europe’s prices are surging amid the U.S.-Iran war.

Data center projects are likely to migrate to parts of Europe with lower power costs, creating winners and losers across the continent, experts say.

– CNBC’s George Bextor contributed to this story.

SoftBank Group shares extended their scorching rally to a second day, rising over 12% Friday, and building on momentum after Nvidia’s blockbuster earnings boosted AI-linked stocks.

The company’s shares had closed 20% higher Thursday, adding over $35 billion to its market cap.

Softbank rally is also being powered by a sharp rise in Arm Holdings, in which the Japanese company holds a majority stake. Arm shares advanced over 16% overnight, after gaining more than 15% in the prior session.

Nvidia recent results have reinforced optimism around continued spending on AI infrastructure and data centers.

The potential OpenAI listing is also driving investors to SoftBank that has invested heavily into the ChatGPT maker, with the IPO set to unlock substantial value for SoftBank.

The company has emerged as one of OpenAI’s largest backers, investing more than $30 billion into OpenAI and booking roughly $45 billion in related gains in the fiscal year ended March.

SoftBank booked a yearly gain of $46 billion at its Vision Fund driven mainly by the huge rise in value of its investment in OpenAI.

The Japanese giant has invested more than $30 billion in OpenAI, with its investment gains in the company totalling $45 billion in the year ended March.

In the three months to the end of March, the Vision Fund saw a gain of around $20 billion, which was nearly all driven by OpenAI as SoftBank suffered losses on other investments such as Coupang, DiDi Global and Klarna.

SoftBank is looking to position itself in the center of the artificial intelligence boom with investments across various AI and chip companies, and Sam Altman’s OpenAI forming the centrepiece.

SoftBank has committed to invest more than $60 billion in OpenAI which would give it around 13% ownership of the company, the company said in February. More than $30 billion of that as already been invested.

In March, OpenAI closed a funding round that was co-led by SoftBank and that valued the AI lab at $852 billion, even as the company faces intense competition from rivals like Google and Anthropic.

While the rising valuation of OpenAI has helped SoftBank’s Vision Fund, the concentration of OpenAI in SoftBank’s portfolio has raised concerns around its debt load. In March, S&P Global Ratings revised its outlook for SoftBank from “stable” to “negative.”

The ratings agency said SoftBank’s “asset liquidity and quality of its portfolio, and its financial capacity are likely to deteriorate because of its additional huge investment in OpenAI.”

SoftBank could “limit negative financial impacts” by selling some assets, the ratings agency said. Indeed, SoftBank has been selling down stakes in companies like T-Mobile and Nvidia to fund its OpenAI bet.

The company said it earned 218.1 billion Japanese yen ($1.4 billion) from gains on these sales and other investments for the financial year. However, once factors like exchange rate and expenses are removed, SoftBank posted an investment income loss, excluding the Vision Fund, of 472.1 billion yen.

Overall, the SoftBank group posted a 5 trillion yen net profit for the year, aided mainly by the Vision Fund and its telecommunications division.

This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.

Shares in Japanese tech-focused investment giant SoftBank Group soared 16.5% Thursday, amid a broader tech-fueled rally that saw Japan’s Nikkei 225 surge to record highs.

Japanese markets reopened after an extended holiday and investors rushed to catch up with a global artificial intelligence-fueled rally, sending Japanese tech names higher.

While SoftBank is on course to record its best day since 2020, if gains hold, chip-testing equipment maker Advantest rose nearly 7.8%, while semiconductor equipment supplier Tokyo Electron surged 9.2%. Chip solutions provider Renesas Electronics jumped 13.8%.

The rally came after Wall Street’s tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite hit another record overnight, with U.S. artificial intelligence-linked stocks surging. Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. rose 18.6%, Arm Holdings advanced 13% and server maker Super Micro Computer Inc. soared 24.5%.

“Japan was shut for the back end of Golden Week while global risk assets ripped, so today’s move is the Nikkei pricing in three sessions in one,” said Global X ETFs’ investment strategist Billy Leung.

“SPX hit a fresh record and Nasdaq made another all-time high while Tokyo was closed, led by semis and AI names,” Leung said, adding that Advantest and Tokyo Electron are “the most liquid Japanese expressions of that AI semi trade.”

He added that easing geopolitical concerns also helped sentiment, with oil prices falling on signs of de-escalation between the U.S. and Iran.

SoftBank’s gains were amplified by its close ties to Arm and artificial intelligence firm OpenAI. “SoftBank is effectively the listed proxy for OpenAI and Arm,” Leung said.

The move also reflected growing investor optimism around data center infrastructure demand tied to AI inference and agentic AI systems.

Rolf Bulk, head of semiconductor and infrastructure at The Futurum Group, said the rally reflects growing optimism around the long-term demand outlook for AI infrastructure.

“I think it’s partly a continuation rally on the back of the strong AI-related share performance in the U.S. yesterday, as well as a reaction to AMD’s quarterly report, which has strong read-across for Arm,” Bulk said.

“CPUs are important for AI inference workloads; they handle for instance agent sandboxes, orchestration servers, database and API layers. With inference and agentic AI demand increasing, datacenter CPUs have become one of the key bottlenecks in the AI infrastructure build-out.”

Bulk pointed to AMD’s latest forecast that the total addressable market for datacenter CPUs could reach $120 billion by 2030, growing more than 35% annually.

SoftBank Group is planning to create and list a standalone artificial intelligence and robotics company in the U.S. as early as this year, the Financial Times reported on Thursday. 

The new entity, to be called “Roze,” will focus on building data centers and using robotics to improve the efficiency of AI infrastructure construction, according to the report, which cited anonymous sources familiar with the matter.

SoftBank founder and Chief Executive Masayoshi Son is driving the effort, with executives reportedly targeting a valuation of about $100 billion and aiming to pursue the initial public offering this year.

However, the report noted that the valuation target and timeline could shift and that the plans are considered ambitious by some SoftBank executives, in part due to uncertainties stemming from the conflict in the Middle East.  

Son’s AI risk appetite has been growing in recent years, with tens of billions of dollars committed to the sector. Investors, however, have raised concerns about how SoftBank will fund those investments, particularly its backing of OpenAI, which remains unprofitable.

The proposed listing could help offset some of the major pledges, including more than $30 billion committed to OpenAI.

Roze could also reportedly bundle existing energy, land and infrastructure assets from SoftBank’s portfolio, as well as ABB Robotics, which SoftBank agreed to buy last year. 

ABB Robotics is one of the world’s leading suppliers of robotics and machine automation solutions, and SoftBank is expected to integrate its robotics hardware with AI capabilities. 

SoftBank representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC. 

Son’s AI ambitions have increasingly centered on the U.S., with the firm already positioning itself as a major financier of American AI infrastructure.

At the start of last year, SoftBank partnered with OpenAI, Oracle and others on the Stargate project, a planned $500 billion investment to build AI data center capacity across the country.

The conglomerate has also been working quickly to build its own data centers, including a large-scale project in Ohio. 

SoftBank posted a $2.4 billion gain in its Vision Fund in the December quarter as gains tied to its OpenAI investment helped offset losses in some of its other bets.

The firm was trading 0.9% lower on Thursday and is up more than 18% this year.

SoftBank posted a $2.4 billion gain at its Vision Fund in the December quarter as a jump in the value of its OpenAI investment helped offset losses in some of its other bets.

The Japanese giant said it made a $4.2 billion gain on the value of its OpenAI investment in its fiscal third quarter, which runs to the end of December, offsetting losses stemming from the share price declines of Coupang and Chinese ride-hailing app Didi.

The company also said investment losses were impacted by a markdown in its stake in TikTok creator ByteDance.

This helped SoftBank Group book fiscal third-quarter net profit of 248.6 billion yen ($1.6 billion), which missed analyst estimates, but was a reversal of the loss seen in the same period last year.

With the Vision Fund, SoftBank has invested in AI companies it believes will be category winners, seeking to position itself at the center of the technology’s development.

This includes a roughly $40 billion investment in ChatGPT developer OpenAI as one of its core companies. SoftBank owns approximately 11% of OpenAI.

SoftBank said it had seen a $17 billion gain on its OpenAI investment during the April to December period.

Among SoftBank’s other key bets is chip designer Arm and investments that span everything from robotics to driverless cars.

SoftBank shares have jumped this week after strong results at its telecommunications unit and a rally in the price of Arm’s stock.

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for more.

Saimemory, a subsidiary of multinational investment giant SoftBank, has signed a collaboration agreement with American chipmaker Intel Corp. to advance the commercialization of next-generation memory technology, the companies announced Tuesday.

The partnership focuses on next-generation memory technologies that can support the growing demands of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. The effort is currently known as the “Z-Angle Memory program,” or ZAM.

Prototypes are expected by the fiscal year ending March 31, 2028, with commercialization targeted for fiscal 2029, according to a SoftBank press release. 

Shares of SoftBank rose 3.13%, while Intel stock rose 5% in overnight trading on Robinhood following the announcement.

Saimemory, established in December 2024, will draw on memory technology and expertise from Intel, particularly from initiatives it undertook as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Memory Technology program.

The program focused on developing core technologies for advanced memory. Intel’s involvement specifically targeted improvements in performance and power efficiency for next-generation Dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) used in computers and servers.

“Standard memory architectures aren’t meeting AI needs,”  Dr. Joshua Fryman, Intel Fellow and CTO of Intel Government Technologies, said in a statement. 

He added that Intel has developed a new memory architecture and assembly approach that improves DRAM performance while lowering power use and costs, positioning the technology for broader adoption over the next decade.

The partnership comes amid surging demand for memory used in AI-related applications. This demand has vastly outpaced supply, which has triggered shortages across the memory supply chain.  

The emphasis on energy efficiency for the ZAM program also also reflects growing concerns over the vast energy consumption needed for AI computing.  

The collaboration between Intel and SoftBank on next-generation memory technology was first reported by Nikkei Asia last year. Fujitsu, a Japanese multinational IT equipment and services company, is also reportedly involved in the project.