SoftBank Group's market value halved from its peak in June. SoftBank Group's market value halved from its peak in June, as higher borrowing costs fuel investor concerns over the sustainability of its massive investments in artificial intelligence. Shares of the Tokyo-based company fell 6.9% on Thursday, taking their drop from an all-time high struck on June 2 to 50%, with earnings from U.S. megacaps failing to ease the angst. After briefly overtaking Toyota as Japan's biggest company four months ago, its market capitalization is now about ¥24.7 trillion ($157 billion), smaller than that of Hitachi and Recruit. Global concerns over AI spending had accelerated after U.S.-based cloud-computing provider CoreWeave's bonds fell to levels associated with distress, exposing financing risks across the industry. "SoftBank's vulnerability stands out as investors increasingly scrutinize the financial health of AI-related companies, given the group's highly leveraged financial structure and growing borrowing costs," said Kazuyuki Muramatsu, head of investment management at Nagomi Capital.

Anthropic to commit 5% stake to new'public benefit fund' Anthropic cited the potential impact of artificial intelligence on workers as one area of focus for its new fund. Artificial intelligence lab Anthropic, the developer of Claude, said on Sunday it would commit 5% of its shares to a new public benefit fund so it has increased flexibility and scale to make donations for the "public good." The proposed fund would be established as a wholly owned limited liability company and would receive an additional 2% of Anthropic's shares, at the board's discretion, for every 50% increase in the company's value above a baseline that has yet to be disclosed. The move comes at a time when Anthropic is planning one of the biggest initial public offerings in history as a public benefit corporation, a legal structure that requires management to consider certain broader interests as well as turning a profit for investors. The company, which has positioned itself as a safety-first AI lab, has said AI could pose "catastrophic or existential risks to humanity" and devoted roughly 80 pages of the 261-page main body of its prospectus to laying out risk factors.

Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Ryosei Akazawa speaks during a news conference in Tokyo on Thursday. Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Ryosei Akazawa on Thursday praised the U.S. semiconductor plant project selected for the third round of Japanese funding in the United States under the two countries' tariff agreement. The project "holds great significance for Japan and the United States to work together to secure a competitive advantage in the age of artificial intelligence," Akazawa said during a news conference. In the agreement concluded last year, Japan pledged to provide the United States with $550 billion in investment and loans in exchange for U.S. tariff cuts for imports from the Asian country. Under the project, led by U.S. semiconductor contract manufacturer GlobalFoundries, two new plants are set to be built in the state of New York with funding of up to $21 billion.

The international technology exhibition CEATEC 2026 opens at Makuhari Messe in Chiba on Tuesday. CHIBA - Artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge digital technologies are on display as the CEATEC international exhibition opened on Tuesday at the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba, joined by 821 companies and organizations from Japan and abroad. "As societal challenges become increasingly complex, it is important not only to create new technologies, but also to change the future of industries, society and people's lives for the better," Takashi Niino, chair of the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association, an industry group that organizes the four-day event, said in a speech at an opening ceremony. Among the exhibitors, Mitsubishi Electric demonstrated AI technology capable of identifying abnormal sounds and human voices in noisy manufacturing environments. Hitachi presented its efforts to improve the efficiency of social infrastructure operations, including railways and power systems, using AI, while NEC showcased a service designed to protect organizations from cyberattacks.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva speaks during the IMF/World Bank 2026 Annual Meetings in Bangkok on Monday. The head of the International Monetary Fund has warned of the disruptive threat from artificial intelligence to the labor market and taxation, urging policymakers to rethink education and act now to help society adapt. "It is a slow-moving tsunami, but tsunami none the less," Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said Monday during her first appearance at the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Bangkok. Speaking at a session on AI's impact on employment, she said the technology is already hollowing out demand for many human workers by taking over routine, repetitive tasks. At the same time, it is increasing low-paying jobs in sectors like construction, which she said is "not a story to celebrate."

Waymo and two Japanese firms, Go and Nihon Kotsu, will jointly launch driverless taxi services in Tokyo in 2027. Metropolitan Police Department plans to set up next spring a section dedicated to the investigation and prevention of accidents involving autonomous driving, the force has said. High-level knowledge and skills are necessary to investigate the causes of such accidents and the Tokyo police hope to accumulate expertise and share it with police departments in other prefectures amid the spread of autonomous driving trials held across the country. The new section, to be created within the police department's traffic bureau, will be in charge of handling applications for Level 4 services -- under which a system handles all driving operations under specified conditions -- as well as investigating accidents and advocating accident prevention. Taxi-hailing app operator Go, U.S. self-driving technology firm Waymo and taxi operator Nihon Kotsu announced in September that they will jointly launch driverless taxi services in Tokyo in 2027, marking Japan's first such commercial service.

Hitachi and other electronics makers are receiving a flurry of inquiries about their cyberdefense services. With a growing number of Japanese firms falling prey to unauthorized computer system breaches, major electronics makers are facing a flurry of inquiries about their cyberdefense services. The demand is expected to continue growing as these companies expand their service offerings to counter increasingly sophisticated, AI-driven cyberattacks. "We are receiving more and more requests for consultations about how to ensure business continuity in the event of cyberattacks, from client companies responsible for critical infrastructure, such as power suppliers, transport service providers, manufacturers and financial service firms," Kanako Gushi, senior consultant at Hitachi, said. Last month, the company started providing a comprehensive service that supports operations such as monitoring and detecting cyberattack risks and restoring affected systems, leveraging state-of-the-art AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic in the United States.

SoftBank Group Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son speaks during an event in Tokyo in July. SoftBank Group seeks to raise as much as $100 billion from Gulf investors to help it amp up its bets on artificial intelligence (AI), the Financial Times (FT) reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Founder Masayoshi Son has held early talks with potential investors including those in the United Arab Emirates, the newspaper said. The proposed fund would buy companies and use AI and machines, including from SoftBank's robotics arm Roze, to improve operations, the FT said. Fundraising of that scale would fuel more spending by the tech investment firm, which has invested almost $65 billion in OpenAI ahead of the AI lab's public debut.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and other officials observe the Hyunmoo-5 missile at an undisclosed test site in South Korea on Thursday. Seoul - South Korea test-fired its first homegrown hypersonic weapon on Thursday, the presidential office said, days after Pyongyang announced the AI-assisted launch of an intermediate-range hypersonic missile. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung "observed the first test launch of a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) -- currently under research and development using domestic technology," the presidential Blue House said in a statement. Hypersonic glide vehicles are sent into the upper atmosphere via rocket boosters or on ballistic missiles, then glide towards their target at five times the speed of sound or greater. Hailing a "key strategic asset capable of changing the course of the battlefield," the South Korean statement said that the missiles' "unpredictable flight trajectories and overwhelming speed enable them to strike key strategic targets." The test was aimed at verifying "the performance of ultra-high-temperature heat-resistant materials -- a core technology for glide vehicles -- as well as guidance and control capabilities and the ability to fly irregularly at low altitudes under hypersonic flight conditions," it added.

South Korea bank hack suspect may be 26-year-old in China, U.S. firm says Authorities in Seoul are investigating cyberattacks that affected multiple financial institutions after banks, including Shinhan Bank and KB Kookmin Bank, reported data breaches. SEOUL - The suspect behind recent cyberattacks targeting South Korea's financial sector may be a 26-year-old based in China's Guangdong province, U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has said. In a report published on its website on Wednesday, CrowdStrike said it uncovered personal details linked to the suspected attacker while analyzing AI coding-tool sessions and infrastructure associated with a campaign targeting South Korean financial institutions from late September to early October. CrowdStrike said the attacker used ARTEX, a recently released Chinese-developed open-source penetration testing tool, alongside large language models and assessed with "moderate confidence" that the actor was a Chinese speaker and likely financially motivated. The firm said one Claude Code session contained a request to create a security researcher resume describing results from the hacking activity.