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Japan’s SoftBank racks up huge profit gains with lift from lucrative AI investments

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology investor Softbank Group Corp. reported Wednesday that profits for the fiscal year through March zoomed by nearly five-fold from the previous year as its AI investments paid off.

The Tokyo-based company recorded an annual profit of 5 trillion yen ($32 billion), far greater than the 1.15 trillion yen profit racked up the previous year.

Sales climbed nearly 8% on-year to nearly 7.8 trillion yen ($50 billion) from 7.2 trillion yen, the company said in a statement.

Among its most lucrative investments was OpenAI, in which Softbank has invested $34.6 billion, recording gains of $45 billion.

SoftBank also invests in U.S. AI company Nvidia, German mobile and internet provider Deutsche Telekom and British semiconductor manufacturer Arm. It also is behind the humanoid robot Pepper.

SoftBank said it got an additional lift from the initial public offering of PayPay, a popular mobile-payment application in Japan, which allows users to make quick, cashless payments using QR codes.

Gains from holdings in Intel Corp. offset the minus from those in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.

Such mixed picture results are typical for SoftBank, which began early in investing in technology for a Japanese company and now oversees a sprawling scope of businesses through what it calls Vision Funds.

SoftBank was founded more than four decades ago by Masayoshi Son, the company’s chief executive and chairman, who is a University of California graduate and now a billionaire widely considered a pioneer in Japan’s technology sector.

Softbank recently started a battery business in Japan to build next-generation electric power infrastructure in anticipation of growing electricity demand driven by AI use.

The company also is working with Toppan, a Japanese printing, communications, security and packaging company, to develop lightweight, durable “skin” material for aircraft wings that is set to be used for commercial services in about three years.

SoftBank Group does not provide earnings forecasts.

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Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama

Beijing bans 4 New Zealand lawmakers from entering China because they visited Taiwan

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Beijing banned four New Zealand lawmakers from traveling to China for a year and demanded they apologize because they visited Taiwan on a parliamentary trip, according to a message from the Chinese embassy conveyed via parliamentary officials and shown to The Associated Press on Thursday. China has hit lawmakers from other countries with sanctions related to contact with Taiwan before, but it's the first time for New Zealand parliamentarians, the government in Wellington said. Beijing has been increasing pressure in recent years on the democratically governed island that it claims as its own territory. Two lawmakers reached by the AP on Thursday rejected the demand for an apology, while the other two could not be immediately reached. New Zealand's government said it would express concern about the travel bans to Beijing. The elected officials visited Taipei in May, as New Zealand parliamentarians have done “for decades,” a spokesperson for Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement.
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