Tokyo-listed shares of SoftBank Group (OTC:SFTBY) (OTC:SFTBF) jumped as much as 13% after the Japanese giant agreed to acquire Swiss engineering firm ABB‘s (OTC:ABBNY) Robotics unit in a deal valued at $5.4 billion.
Its shares closed up 11.4% at JPY 22,965 on Thursday, amid expectations that the company would benefit from its series of bets on artificial intelligence, thanks to the ongoing boom in the rapidly evolving technology.
SoftBank Touts ‘Physical AI’ Focus
SoftBank’s CEO Masayoshi Son announced the deal during Tokyo market hours on Wednesday, touting the company’s focus on “Physical AI.”
The move comes at a time when companies are pouring billions of dollars into the technology. SoftBank already owns chip designer Arm (NASDAQ:ARM) and holds a significant stake in OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT.
Earlier in September, SoftBank, along with OpenAI and Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL), unveiled a Stargate project worth $500 billion to drive the next wave of AI. The company also partnered with Intel Corp (NASDAQ:INTC) in June to launch a $70 million AI memory project in Japan to address energy challenges in the data center market.
AI Bet Lifts Japanese Markets
SoftBank's share gain, the steepest since Aug. 8, comes amid a broad rebound on Thursday in Japanese AI-related shares, helped by Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang's comments that demand for the company's Blackwell chips is "really, really high."
The share gain helped lift Japan's blue-chip Nikkei 225 Index, which rose 1.7% on Thursday, outpacing the broader Topix Index, which rose about 0.7%.
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