Benefiting from OpenAI and SB Energy's push for a US stock IPO, SoftBank Group's stock soared nearly 20%.

Benefiting from the news of OpenAI preparing for its first initial public offering (IPO), SoftBank Group Corp. saw its stock price surge by nearly 20% in early trading on the Tokyo market on Thursday. OpenAI is reportedly set to submit its listing application within weeks, aiming for a debut this fall; SoftBank holds about 13% stake in the company, with a total investment of over $64.6 billion. Meanwhile, another subsidiary invested by SoftBank, SB Energy Corp., which develops energy infrastructure for data centers, announced on Wednesday that it will confidentially submit a registration statement for its proposed U.S. IPO to regulatory authorities. Established in 2011, SB Energy originally focused on renewable energy development and energy storage business, but in recent years has strategically expanded into data center development, ownership, and operation, forming a synergistic pattern of "energy + computing power infrastructure." The company is constructing multiple data center campuses for AI computing-intensive enterprises like OpenAI to meet the increasing power and computing demands from AI workloads. SoftBank and OpenAI have a close relationship through a capital alliance. SoftBank holds about 13% stake and has made a cumulative investment of about $64.6 billion through its Vision Fund. SoftBank and OpenAI have a close relationship through a capital alliance, with SoftBank being one of the largest shareholders of OpenAI. As of December 2025, SoftBank held about 11% of OpenAI's shares. In February 2026, SoftBank further committed to additional investment of $30 billion in OpenAI, expected to be completed in batches within the year, increasing its total committed investment to about $64.6 billion, and its stake to about 13%. By the end of March 2026, SoftBank had recorded about $45 billion in cumulative unrealized gains from its investments in OpenAI. The Vision Fund, a subsidiary of SoftBank, saw a significant increase in profits in the past fiscal year due to the soaring valuation of its investment in OpenAI, recording about 6.7 trillion yen (approximately $43 billion) in investment returns, leading to a 15-fold increase in the group's quarterly net profit. According to sources, OpenAI plans to submit its IPO application within the next few weeks, aiming to officially go public at some point this fall, with a valuation potentially reaching $852 billion or higher, possibly becoming one of the largest IPOs in tech history. The sources revealed that OpenAI has hired Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as lead underwriters, and has already confidentially submitted documents to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this week.