Nvidia-Powered Arm Rally Lifts Shares to Record, Nets SoftBank More Than $220 Billion

SoftBank Group acquired British chip architecture designer Arm for about $32 billion in 2016 and relisted it on Nasdaq on September 14, 2023. It still owns about 87% of the company. Arm earns revenue by licensing its low-power CPU architecture. Its expansion from mobile devices into AI servers has made it a core asset in SoftBank’s AI investment portfolio.

On May 20, 2026, Nvidia reported revenue of $81.6 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2027 and said it had visibility into nearly $20 billion in revenue this year from its Arm-based Vera CPU. Arm shares surged 16.16% to $298.23 on May 21, lifting its market capitalization to $317.3 billion. Based on SoftBank’s estimated stake cost of about $40 billion, its paper profit exceeds $220 billion.