SoftBank Slashes TSMC Holdings by Over 70% in Q2, Cashing Out $270 Million as AI Hardware Bets Are Adjusted Again

SoftBank Group Corp. is further adjusting its AI investment landscape.

The latest 13F filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) shows that SoftBank Group Corp. significantly reduced its U.S. stock holdings in Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) in the second quarter of 2026 ended June 30, cutting its position by more than 70% and cashing out approximately $270 million. Meanwhile, SoftBank Group Corp. opened a new position in U.S. credit card giant Capital One Financial and purchased a small stake in home security app Life360, indicating that its portfolio continues to be reallocated toward different AI and technology assets.

Notably, this is not the first time SoftBank Group Corp. has made major adjustments to its core AI assets. In early 2025, SoftBank Group Corp. significantly increased its bets on NVIDIA and Taiwan Semiconductor: by the end of March 2025, its NVIDIA holdings were valued at approximately $3 billion, while it newly purchased about $330 million worth of Taiwan Semiconductor stock.

However, by October 2025, SoftBank Group Corp. had completely liquidated its NVIDIA position, selling approximately 32.1 million shares and cashing out about $5.8 billion, shifting more funds toward AI investments such as OpenAI. Now, with another significant reduction in its Taiwan Semiconductor holdings, SoftBank Group Corp.’s direct equity stakes in core hardware assets along the AI supply chain are clearly contracting.

Q2 Sees 71.5% Reduction in TSMC Holdings; New Position Established in Capital One

According to SoftBank Group Corp.’s latest 13F filing, its holdings of Taiwan Semiconductor American Depositary Receipts (ADR) decreased significantly as of June 30, 2026.

The filing shows that SoftBank Group Corp. sold approximately 1.4 million shares of Taiwan Semiconductor stock in the second quarter, equivalent to 71.5% of its previous holdings, generating proceeds of about $269.8 million.

This means that SoftBank Group Corp. did not just take minor profits on Taiwan Semiconductor but rather cut more than 70% of its position in one go.

At the same time, SoftBank Group Corp. established a new position in Capital One Financial in the second quarter, purchasing nearly 277,000 shares, with a market value of approximately $55.5 million at quarter-end. Additionally, it bought about 10,700 shares of Life360, with a holding value of approximately $488,500.

In terms of capital scale, the proceeds from the reduction in Taiwan Semiconductor holdings far exceeded the newly established Capital One position, suggesting that this move was more akin to a clear capital reallocation rather than a simple sector rotation.

From Increasing NVIDIA Bets to Liquidation, Then to Major Cut in TSMC

The change in SoftBank Group Corp.’s attitude toward AI hardware assets has been unfolding for some time.

Reports in August 2025 showed that by the end of March of that year, SoftBank Group Corp. had significantly increased its NVIDIA holdings from about $1 billion in the previous quarter to approximately $3 billion, while also purchasing about $330 million worth of Taiwan Semiconductor stock and about $170 million worth of Oracle stock.

The changes in the portfolio at that time were seen as a major manifestation of SoftBank Group Corp. founder Masayoshi Son’s bet on AI infrastructure: NVIDIA represents AI computing chips, Taiwan Semiconductor is an advanced-process wafer manufacturer, and Oracle benefits from AI data center and cloud computing demand.

In other words, SoftBank Group Corp. was not only betting on the AI application layer but also directly backing the chips and infrastructure needed to support the expansion of the AI industry.

However, just a few months later, SoftBank Group Corp.’s strategy underwent a major shift.

In November 2025, SoftBank Group Corp. disclosed that it had sold all 32.1 million shares of NVIDIA stock in October, generating proceeds of about $5.8 billion.

At the time, SoftBank Group Corp. emphasized that the sale of NVIDIA was not related to its view of NVIDIA itself, but rather to reallocate capital and increase investment in AI, particularly to fund projects such as OpenAI.

Therefore, SoftBank Group Corp.’s actions cannot be simply interpreted as “bearish on AI.”

On the contrary, the shift resembles a transition from directly holding leading AI hardware companies to focusing more on AI platforms, models, and AI infrastructure projects themselves.

Shifting from “Buying Chips” to “Betting on the AI Ecosystem”

When SoftBank Group Corp. liquidated its NVIDIA position, the most pressing question in the market was: If SoftBank Group Corp. remains firmly bullish on AI, why sell NVIDIA, the core company in the AI supply chain?

The answer may lie in the changes in its capital needs and investment direction.

SoftBank Group Corp. had previously identified OpenAI as a core investment target and continued to raise huge amounts of capital to support related investments. The $5.8 billion generated from selling NVIDIA in 2025 was one of the important sources of funding for its further increased bets on AI.

Meanwhile, SoftBank Group Corp. has continued to lay out investments in robotics, autonomous driving, and “physical AI.” This means its AI strategy has expanded beyond merely holding shares in chip companies to broader links in the industrial chain, including AI models, data centers, robotics, and AI applications.

From this perspective, the significant reduction in Taiwan Semiconductor holdings does not necessarily mean that SoftBank Group Corp. has suddenly turned bearish on the semiconductor industry.

A more likely explanation is that, against the backdrop of rapidly rising valuations for AI assets overall and increasing capital demands, Masayoshi Son is actively releasing liquidity from some mature listed AI hardware assets to deploy into AI projects that are more strategically significant but also carry higher risk.

Particularly noteworthy is that SoftBank Group Corp. has already demonstrated its reluctance to long-term “hold on” to leading AI stocks—it significantly increased its NVIDIA holdings in 2025, only to exit completely in October of the same year; now, Taiwan Semiconductor has again seen a one-time cut of over 70%.

This also implies that SoftBank Group Corp.’s AI investment logic is gradually shifting from “holding AI winners” to “betting on larger capital expenditure and platform opportunities within the AI ecosystem.”

For the market, the signal released by the latest 13F filing is therefore not simply that “SoftBank Group Corp. is bearish on Taiwan Semiconductor,” but rather that Masayoshi Son is once again making large-scale moves in his AI portfolio: from NVIDIA to Taiwan Semiconductor, direct holdings in leading AI hardware companies are declining, while capital is increasingly concentrating on assets such as OpenAI, which he believes represent the next wave of AI.