SoftBank Drops 12% as Asian Tech Stocks Follow US Rout

SoftBank Group plummeted 12% Thursday, dragging Asian technology stocks into a broad rout that traced its origins to deepening investor anxiety over the surging cost of building out artificial intelligence infrastructure — a concern that first hammered US markets before spreading across the Pacific.

The sharp decline put SoftBank at the epicenter of a regional selloff, underscoring the company's outsize exposure to the AI sector through its sprawling investment portfolio. As one of the world's most prominent technology investors, SoftBank has long positioned itself as a direct beneficiary of the AI boom — making it equally vulnerable when sentiment around AI spending sours.

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The broader Asian tech market took collateral damage as investors reassessed the financial math behind massive AI buildouts. Rising infrastructure costs threaten to compress margins and delay profitability timelines for the AI-driven companies that have commanded premium valuations in recent years, analysts note — a recalibration that is now visibly repricing risk across global exchanges.

The synchronized sell-pressure between US and Asian markets highlights how tightly coupled global technology valuations have become, particularly around the AI theme. A shift in sentiment on Wall Street now transmits almost instantly to Tokyo, Seoul, and beyond, leaving few regional safe havens when the underlying narrative — in this case, AI's near-term return on investment — comes under scrutiny.

Continue reading at US Top News and Analysis.