TOKYO – SoftBank Group has told investors that money paid to secure power equipment for American AI data centers has been lost, at least in part. The company booked a $3.7 billion charge on advance payments and contract changes tied to equipment it no longer expects to use under a revised plan.
The charge, ¥597.2 billion, appears in SoftBank’s results briefing for the six months ended September 30, presented on November 10. It divides into $2.9 billion on non-refundable payments for manufacturing capacity and equipment that fell out of the plan, and $0.9 billion for contract modifications and settlements.
Behind the loss sits a much larger commitment. SoftBank’s disclosure describes manufacturing-capacity reservations and equipment purchase contracts, with cumulative payments of about $9.5 billion from the 2025 fiscal year through the September quarter. A further $6.6 billion is allocated to equipment for the PORTS-Pike project and others, according to the same presentation.
The company also holds rebate rights of up to $2.1 billion on future equipment purchases, according to SoftBank’s investor briefing. Those rebates are conditional, they are not recognised as an asset, and the timing and amounts of the purchases that would trigger them are undetermined. A reader should not subtract that figure from the loss.
One line in the presentation limits what the charge can be taken to mean. SoftBank states that the $3.7 billion loss is completely unrelated to PORTS-Pike. The write-off therefore cannot be described as a reduction in the value of that project, even though equipment for it appears elsewhere in the same disclosure.
For the company, the charge arrives while its AI strategy depends heavily on borrowed money. Eastern Herald reported in September on the company’s record junk bond sale for Masayoshi Son’s AI bet. Spending that cannot be used is harder to absorb when financing costs are also part of the picture.
The disclosure leaves several questions open. It does not identify the type of equipment, the suppliers receiving the payments, or which data-center projects were scaled back. It also does not say whether further payments are at risk beyond the amounts already written off.
The Wall Street Journal published its own account of SoftBank’s turbine commitments on November 11. Eastern Herald could not read that article in full and has not relied on it here. Everything above comes from SoftBank’s published results material.
