SoftBank Swings to a $7 Billion Quarterly Loss on a U.S. Data Center Power Equipment Write-Down

SoftBank Group Corp. reported a net loss of 1.12 trillion yen, or about $7 billion, for its fiscal second quarter ended Sept. 30, 2026, after writing down advance payments for power-generation equipment for U.S. artificial intelligence data centers and recording losses tied to Intel shares, CNBC reported. The Tokyo-based technology investor had posted a net profit of 2.5 trillion yen in the same quarter a year earlier.

Shares fell as much as 10.5% in Tokyo on Wednesday, Nov. 11, before recovering much of the drop and briefly turning higher in the afternoon.

The data center write-down

SoftBank recorded a loss of 597.2 billion yen, or about $3.7 billion, after changing its procurement plans for power-generation equipment for AI data center projects in the United States, according to CNBC. The company said it had made advance investments to lock in the equipment because of concerns about shortages and long lead times. Cumulative payments for that equipment, including for projects such as the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio, totaled $9.48 billion as of the end of September.

Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto said SoftBank had sometimes moved to secure equipment before long-term plans were finalized and that the company is conducting "a thorough reassessment," including of its procurement strategy, Bloomberg reported via The Edge Malaysia. SoftBank said in its earnings statement that it can receive rebates of up to $2.1 billion over the next 10 years on future equipment purchases, according to the same report.

Six-month and segment results

For the April-September half, SoftBank posted a consolidated net loss of 768 billion yen, compared with a profit of 2,924 billion yen a year earlier, Jiji Press reported via Nippon.com. It was the company's first first-half loss in three years. Revenue for the half rose 13.3% to 4,235 billion yen, Jiji said, with CNBC reporting that growth came from the telecommunications and AI computing businesses. The figures are detailed in SoftBank's consolidated financial report for the six months ended Sept. 30. Second-quarter revenue was 2.22 trillion yen, above the LSEG consensus estimate of 2.02 trillion yen, CNBC said.

The Vision Fund segment swung to a quarterly loss of 81.58 billion yen from a profit of 2.38 trillion yen a year earlier. Vision Fund 1 recorded an investment loss of $20 million in the quarter despite a $1.3 billion gain on ByteDance, as listed holdings including Coupang and Grab declined, according to CNBC.

OpenAI stake and financing costs

As of the end of September, SoftBank's cumulative investment in OpenAI was $54.6 billion, with a fair value of $99.6 billion and a cumulative investment gain of $45 billion, CNBC reported. The company said any increase in OpenAI's valuation from a new funding round had not yet been reflected in its results and could be recorded in the fiscal third quarter once announced, which it said could lift its net asset value and improve its loan-to-value ratio.

Financing costs more than doubled to 462 billion yen in the quarter, Investing.com reported. Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal wrote that while part of the loss reflects accounting, "the real issues are a ¥597 billion power-equipment write-off that raised more questions" than management could explain and financing costs that rose 2.6 times from a year earlier, according to The Edge. "Management is playing defence," he wrote.

SoftBank's net asset value stood at 59.8 trillion yen at the end of September, down 12.5 trillion yen from three months earlier, largely because of a decline in the value of chip designer Arm Holdings, The Asia Business Daily reported, citing the company.

Market reaction

SoftBank shares dropped as much as 10.5% to 3,465 yen in early Tokyo trading on Wednesday and were down 6.1% at 3,636 yen shortly after 10 a.m. local time, Investing.com said. The stock later rose as much as 0.8% in the afternoon as sentiment toward AI stocks improved on stronger-than-expected results from AI cloud provider CoreWeave and a report that bankers for Anthropic were weighing a higher valuation for its initial public offering, The Edge reported.

The shares had closed 13.9% higher on Tuesday, before the results were released, CNBC said. They have fallen more than 50% from their record high in June, according to The Edge. Japan's Nikkei 225 closed Wednesday up 789.01 points, or 1.31%, at 61,248.59, its third straight gain, Nikkei reported.

Other AI infrastructure moves

SoftBank highlighted a 20-year lease agreement with OpenAI for eight gigawatts of IT capacity at a data center project in Ohio, CNBC reported. On Monday, before the earnings release, SoftBank announced plans with Grab and Malaysia's PETROS to commit a combined $1.85 billion in initial capital to develop AI infrastructure in Malaysia, with a long-term target of at least five gigawatts of computing capacity.