SoftBank Raises $1.9 Billion Abroad to Invest in AI

SoftBank Group Corp sold $1.86 billion in bonds to pay off debt and spend in AI. This was the company’s first deal with foreign currency debt since 2021.

To get more money to spend in artificial intelligence (AI), SoftBank Group Corp sold dollar and euro bonds worth about US$1.86 billion (RM8.78 billion). This was the Japanese tech company’s first foreign currency debt deal since 2021.

On Thursday, Masayoshi Son’s company said it priced two dollar tranches worth a total of US$900 million and two euro tranches worth a total of €900 million, which is about US$964 million or RM4.54 billion. SoftBank said the money will be used to pay off debt and keep the business running.

It is expected that SoftBank and its founder Son will speed up their work in AI because they have recently made big investments in it.

This year, the Japanese company put $200 million straight into Tempus AI Inc., a start-up that helps doctors and patients find better treatments by looking at medical data. It most recently put $3 billion into Perplexity AI, a company that wants to use AI to compete with Alphabet Inc.’s Google Search.

It was claimed in February by Bloomberg News that SoftBank is working on a long-term plan to put about US$100 billion into AI chips through a project called Izanagi.