Nvidia CEO Huang regrets turning down SoftBank's offer to fund acquisition

During a conversation at the Nvidia AI Summit in Japan, Jensen Huang praised SoftBank's Masayoshi Son for his contributions across multiple industry sectors in Japan

Chip manufacturer Nvidia’s chief executive Jensen Huang regrets declining an offer from SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son to raise funds for the full acquisition of the company a decade ago. Huang said this during a conversation at Nvidia AI Summit in Japan on November 13, where he also revealed that SoftBank was then the largest shareholder of Nvidia with a 5 per cent stake in the company, according to a Bloomberg report. 

 

During a fireside chat with Son, Huang recalled his earlier interaction with Masayoshi Son when the latter said, “Jensen, the market doesn’t understand the value of Nvidia. Your future is incredible, but the market just doesn’t get it.” Recognising Nvidia’s potential and the transformative future of AI, Son had then offered to lend Huang the funds needed to acquire the company outright.

 

 

As per the reports, Son and Haung are planning to come together to help SoftBank in building a supercomputer with Nvidia’s chips built with its new Blackwell design as the company is ambitious about its AI plans. The project is aimed at supporting a wide range of local services, according to the company. 

 

In addition to Japan's cloud leader SoftBank Corp, the deal will also include GMO Internet Group, Highreso, KDDI, Rutilea, and SAKURA Internet.

 

During the conversation, Haung also praised Son for its major contributions across multiple sectors in Japan. “Masa is the one who brought Bill Gates to Japan. He brought Jerry Yang to Japan. He made China’s cloud industry possible through Alibaba. He was the one who introduced Steve Jobs to Japan and played a key role in the launch of the iPhone. And many of you might not know this, but at one point, Masa was the largest shareholder of Nvidia,” said the Nvidia CEO. 

 

Huang asked the SoftBank chief how he identifies the innovators and creators behind each technological revolution in computing history and manages to maintain a perfect track record.

 

Masayoshi Son replied saying he was “just lucky”. “I was born at the right time and had the chance to meet great entrepreneurs,” said Son.