The global scramble for artificial intelligence infrastructure has reshuffled corporate valuations across Asia. SoftBank Group founder and CEO Masayoshi Son holds a net worth of $100.7 billion as of early June, surpassing Indian conglomerate chairmen Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani to become the region’s wealthiest individual. Ambani currently holds roughly $90 billion.
SoftBank Group’s stock recorded a 14% single-day increase on Monday. The resulting valuation pushed SoftBank’s market capitalization to 48 trillion yen ($306 billion), officially making it Japan’s most valuable company over Toyota Motor.
The valuation spike is anchored by the company’s nearly 90% ownership stake in British chip designer Arm Holdings. Arm’s market capitalization recently broke the $300 billion threshold following elevated industry outlooks for semiconductor demand. Equities traders are also pricing in a rumored September 2026 initial public offering for OpenAI, a startup SoftBank has backed with tens of billions of dollars in recent funding rounds.
Beyond equity holdings, Son is allocating capital directly into physical compute infrastructure. SoftBank committed €45 billion to construct artificial intelligence data centers in France by 2031, an agreement formalized during Son’s meeting with Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace. The investment aligns with the French president’s “Plug, baby, plug” clean-energy initiative and contains provisions to scale up to €75 billion if European energy demand metrics are met.
How Physical Infrastructure Replaces the Consumer Software Strategy
This wealth milestone marks the first time in over a decade that Son has held the title of Asia’s richest person. He has publicly compared the current economic environment to his past technology investments, stating the artificial intelligence wave will be “50 times bigger” than the dot-com boom.
By shifting focus from consumer software platforms to hard compute assets like Arm and physical European data centers, SoftBank is insulating its portfolio from application-level volatility. The €45 billion commitment in France demonstrates a pivot toward sovereign-level infrastructure partnerships rather than traditional venture capital software bets.