SoftBank overtakes Toyota to become Japan's most valuable company

Odaily Odaily News AI demand drove the Japanese stock market to a record high, with SoftBank surpassing Toyota on Monday to become the most valuable company in Japan by market capitalization. With its significant exposure to OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, and its broader ambitions in the AI field, SoftBank has transformed itself into a vehicle for the current wave of investment frenzy sweeping the Japanese market.

SoftBank has risen nearly 73% so far this year and hit a new record high on Monday, rising over 8%, after the company committed to investing up to 75 billion euros in France to build a massive network of AI computing clusters. Its market capitalization now exceeds 46 trillion yen (approximately $288 billion). Toyota's market cap stood at slightly over 48 trillion yen at the close of trading last Friday, but fell nearly 4.5% on Monday, dropping below 46 trillion yen. The automaker had surpassed telecommunications group NTT Docomo in 2003 to become Japan's most valuable company by this metric. (Jin Shi)