SoftBank trims Vision Fund staff to double down on $500B AI bet

SoftBank Group is cutting 20% of Vision Fund jobs worldwide as founder Masayoshi Son moves money into big artificial intelligence projects, including a $500 billion ￰0￱ center plan with ￰1￱ is the third round of Vision Fund layoffs since 2022, but it comes after the fund’s best quarter in more than two ￰2￱ move shows Son is turning away from many small startup bets and focusing on big, concentrated AI ￰3￱ cuts Vision Fund staff to sharpen AI focus One in five employees out of the 300+ that SoftBank’s Vision Fund hires worldwide will lose their jobs to ￰4￱ layoffs happened when the fund struggled with heavy losses from risky bets on companies like WeWork that failed to deliver long-term ￰5￱ group had to sell its assets and reduce its activities to rebuild trust with ￰6￱ that has changed now because the Vision Fund announced its strongest results since mid-2021, thanks to gains in companies like Nvidia and ￰7￱ the fact that these job cuts are coming after strong results shows that the company is planning something big for the long term.

A spokesperson for the Vision Fund said the company wants to focus on “bold, high-conviction investments in AI and breakthrough technologies,” which means it will put its money on fewer projects but with bigger ￰8￱ differs from when it invested in hundreds of startups and tried to capture growth wherever ￰9￱ Masayoshi Son even said the company’s future depends on AI and wants to move more people, time, and money into that ￰10￱ cysts aren’t just about saving money, but also preparing the Vision Fund to play a new role in AI and rebuild its position as one of the most influential investment funds ￰11￱ leads $500B push into data centers and AI models Masayoshi Son announced a $500 billion plan called the Stargate project to build a large network of data centers across the United ￰12￱ company aims to work with OpenAI to ensure these data centers can provide the huge amount of computing power that modern artificial intelligence systems ￰13￱ has also been investing a lot of money into ￰14￱ Fund invested $9.7 billion into OpenAI through Vision Fund 2 (controls around $65.8 billion in assets overall).

Son believes OpenAI and its foundation models will transform many different industries and create brand-new markets that don’t exist ￰15￱ also wants to build an ecosystem with AI chips that provide raw computing power and data centers that host the models and the foundation models that power ￰16￱ has invested in chip design companies like Graphcore and Ampere Computing, and bought shares in companies like Intel and Nvidia to access the most advanced ￰17￱ also owns its own chip design company, Arm, whose technology is used in billions of devices ￰18￱ are still risks involved with Son’s vision because the Stargate project in the United States needs large amounts of money, land, power, and advanced ￰19￱ have already shown that the project faces delays.

A similar joint project in Japan with OpenAI has also experienced problems, and these delays prove that even a company as experienced and well-funded as SoftBank can face unexpected challenges that slow down ￰20￱ leaders at SoftBank have tried to convince investors that the company was always ready to handle such ￰21￱ Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto said SoftBank holds about 4 trillion yen (around $27 billion) in cash reserves ready to invest in new projects while leaving enough behind to deal with delays. Don’t just read crypto ￰22￱ ￰23￱ to our newsletter. It's free .