SoftBank Group is building up stakes in Nvidia and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the latest reflection of Masayoshi Son's focus on the tools and hardware underpinning artificial intelligence. The Japanese technology investor raised its stake in Nvidia to about 3 billion by the end of March, up from 1 billion in the prior quarter, according to regulatory filings. It bought around 330 million worth of TSMC shares and 170 million in Oracle, they show. That's while SoftBank's signature Vision Fund has monetized almost 2 billion of public and private assets in the first half of 2025, according to a person familiar with the fund's activities. The Vision Fund prioritizes its returns on investment, and there is no particular pressure from SoftBank to monetize its assets, said the person, who asked not to be named discussing private information.

Silicon Valley-based Drive.ai announced Tuesday that Andrew Ng has joined its board of directors. Ng was the chief scientist at Chinese tech giant Baidu until March, and previously founded and led the Google Brain project, an artificial intelligence effort. Drive.ai also revealed plans to launch a pilot test later this year so customers can ride in its self-driving vehicles. To fund this, it raised $50 million from venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates. "This is one horse worth betting on," Ng told CNN Tech.