SoftBank’s $2bn Intel move and Klarna revaluation highlight a bold shift from software to silicon

SoftBank Group Corp. (Tokyo: 9984) has significantly overhauled its investment portfolio during the third quarter of 2025, reflecting a strategic pivot toward artificial intelligence infrastructure and digital financial services. The Japanese conglomerate initiated new positions in Intel Corporation and Klarna Bank AB while divesting its stakes in Oracle Corporation and NVIDIA Corporation. The shift in allocation underscores SoftBank Group’s evolving approach to capital deployment—steering away from mature software and semiconductor holdings and toward foundational technologies and platform-level fintech plays.

The move comes at a time of heightened investor scrutiny around artificial intelligence valuations, datacenter infrastructure spending, and fintech resilience. With a net profit of approximately ¥2.5 trillion reported in the previous quarter, SoftBank Group is now deploying its capital into higher-risk, longer-duration themes such as advanced chip manufacturing and consumer credit transformation. Industry observers believe the group’s exit from legacy players like Oracle Corporation and NVIDIA Corporation indicates a desire to rotate out of headline names and instead back undervalued or strategically aligned infrastructure bets.

SoftBank Group’s latest moves provide investors a clearer view of how the group is reshaping its Vision Fund strategy for the next cycle of innovation and capital formation.

Why is Intel Corporation emerging as a strategic play for SoftBank Group?

SoftBank Group has reportedly invested approximately US$2 billion into Intel Corporation during Q3 2025, making it one of the American semiconductor company’s ten largest shareholders. The average acquisition price for the shares is understood to be in the vicinity of US$23, which reflects a contrarian position in a company that posted an US$18.8 billion loss in 2024. That loss was largely attributed to restructuring costs and lower-than-expected utilization of its foundry services business.

Intel Corporation is in the midst of an ambitious turnaround plan under new leadership, with Lip-Bu Tan taking the helm earlier this year. The company is reorienting its growth strategy around AI inference chips, sovereign semiconductor manufacturing, and hyperscaler partnerships for foundry services. Analysts believe SoftBank Group’s investment signals deep confidence in Intel Corporation’s repositioning as a critical supplier of U.S.-based chip fabrication capacity, especially in light of policy incentives offered under the CHIPS and Science Act.

This investment offers SoftBank Group more than just public equity exposure. It gives the conglomerate a stake in one of the few Western players capable of executing at scale in the sub-five-nanometer semiconductor race. As geopolitical pressure increases on global semiconductor supply chains, SoftBank Group’s decision to back Intel Corporation may also be viewed through the lens of national industrial policy alignment and AI hardware sovereignty.

What role does Klarna play in SoftBank Group’s evolving fintech thesis?

SoftBank Group has not newly acquired Klarna Bank AB shares in Q3 2025 but has clarified the strategic intent behind its existing position. Vision Fund disclosures indicate a total investment cost of approximately US$1.7 billion in Klarna, with a fair market value as of September 30, 2025, marked at US$0.6 billion. This valuation reset reflects the broader fintech market correction and the high write-downs that have affected private portfolio companies in recent quarters.

Despite the markdown, SoftBank Group appears to be doubling down on Klarna as a long-horizon fintech bet. Klarna has transitioned from a pure-play buy-now-pay-later model to a broader embedded finance platform, now offering merchant-facing APIs, virtual cards, credit scoring tools, and direct-to-consumer digital wallets. Industry analysts suggest SoftBank Group views Klarna’s infrastructure layer as a critical distribution node in the growing intersection of e-commerce and financial services.

Klarna’s strategic partnerships with enterprise resource planning platforms, as well as its expansion into non-European markets, also align with SoftBank Group’s historical approach of backing consumer-tech infrastructure with global addressability. While Klarna remains a marked-down asset on SoftBank Group’s books, the potential for asymmetric upside in a public market relisting could offer long-term reward relative to its current risk-adjusted cost.

What prompted SoftBank Group’s exit from Oracle Corporation and NVIDIA Corporation?

SoftBank Group exited Oracle Corporation during the third quarter in a move that attracted less media attention than its NVIDIA Corporation divestment, but which represents a consistent capital recycling strategy. The Oracle Corporation exit aligns with a broader theme: moving away from legacy enterprise software companies whose capital appreciation may already be priced in.

The more high-profile exit involved SoftBank Group’s complete divestment from NVIDIA Corporation, totaling 32.1 million shares. The sale generated approximately US$5.8 billion in gross proceeds. Despite the cash windfall, the divestment led to a roughly 10 percent decline in SoftBank Group’s stock on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, with analysts questioning whether the group had exited NVIDIA Corporation at a premature moment, particularly as the American chipmaker became the world’s first US$5 trillion company.

SoftBank Group has defended the move by arguing that capital from the NVIDIA Corporation sale is being reallocated to infrastructure-scale projects, including its Stargate data center initiative and emerging AI platform holdings. Investors familiar with the group’s Vision Fund strategies say the exit marks a shift in mindset—from riding post-IPO momentum in public equities to actively shaping the infrastructure stack that underpins the AI economy.

How is investor sentiment evolving around SoftBank Group’s capital reallocation strategy?

Institutional reaction to SoftBank Group’s Q3 reshuffling has been mixed. On one hand, the group’s ability to realize US$5.8 billion in cash from the NVIDIA Corporation stake demonstrates liquidity discipline and value capture. On the other hand, exiting one of the strongest performing semiconductor stocks in the middle of an AI supercycle has raised concerns that SoftBank Group is pulling out of winning bets too early.

Analysts covering the group suggest that the capital rotation makes sense in context. Intel Corporation, though struggling operationally, offers a pathway to own the AI hardware supply chain from the ground up. Klarna, despite recent valuation challenges, remains a platform company with strong unit economics in its European core and a product suite designed to scale across regions. Oracle Corporation’s divestment, by contrast, reflects an intentional pruning of mature, lower growth assets.

Market participants expect continued NAV volatility in SoftBank Group’s quarterly disclosures. While Vision Fund gains supported net income in Q2, the current fiscal year’s second half will test whether the firm can demonstrate durable alpha through its new infrastructure-linked investments. The coming quarters may also reveal whether SoftBank Group intends to increase exposure to OpenAI, Anthropic, or sovereign AI plays via follow-on investments.

What should investors watch for in SoftBank Group’s next set of portfolio moves?

SoftBank Group’s Q3 decisions point to a forward-looking strategy grounded in infrastructure ownership and platform enablement. With Intel Corporation, the group is backing a U.S.-based, policy-aligned player whose foundry ambitions mirror geopolitical interests. With Klarna, SoftBank Group is seeking to capture digital payment flow and embedded financial tools that will power the next generation of consumer interaction.

Investors and analysts will be watching for several key developments in the coming months. One priority will be how Intel Corporation executes its roadmap for next-generation nodes and foundry client acquisition. Another will be whether Klarna can achieve margin improvement and re-rate its valuation through scaled B2B monetization.

On the capital deployment side, future disclosures will be scrutinized to determine if SoftBank Group is tilting more aggressively toward AI infrastructure and sovereign compute capacity, or if it will re-enter higher-growth SaaS or GPU-linked plays depending on market dislocations. The clarity of SoftBank Group’s strategy will rest not just on the names it adds to its portfolio but on the narrative consistency it maintains around thematic allocation.

What are the key takeaways from SoftBank Group’s Q3 2025 portfolio reshuffle?

• SoftBank Group Corp. exited both NVIDIA Corporation and Oracle Corporation during Q3 2025, raising approximately US$5.8 billion in proceeds from the NVIDIA sale alone.

• The Japanese conglomerate initiated a new US$2 billion stake in Intel Corporation, acquiring shares at roughly US$23 and becoming one of its top ten shareholders.

• SoftBank Group reaffirmed its investment in Klarna Bank AB, holding a position with a cost basis of US$1.7 billion and a marked-down fair value of US$0.6 billion as of September 30, 2025.

• These changes reflect a clear shift from mature software and chip holdings to AI infrastructure and embedded fintech platforms with long-term potential.

• Intel Corporation’s inclusion in the portfolio aligns with U.S. semiconductor manufacturing tailwinds under the CHIPS and Science Act and foundry expansion strategy.

• Klarna is viewed as a strategic bet on embedded finance, with its transition from BNPL to full-stack consumer payments gaining traction across European and global markets.

• The NVIDIA Corporation exit triggered a sharp 10 percent drop in SoftBank Group’s stock, sparking debate about the timing and strategic implications of selling a high-performing AI stock.

• Oracle Corporation’s removal from the portfolio highlights SoftBank Group’s intent to reduce exposure to slower-growth legacy enterprise software assets.

• Investor sentiment remains split, with some applauding capital redeployment discipline and others questioning whether SoftBank Group exited its most valuable holdings too soon.

• Analysts and institutional investors are expected to closely watch Intel Corporation’s execution, Klarna’s path to profitability, and further Vision Fund portfolio developments in AI and infrastructure.