NTT Secures Backing for $16.3 Billion Deal to Take Over AI Arm
Bloomberg
Updated 20 Jun 2025, 10:27 AM IST
(Bloomberg) -- Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. said it has secured enough bids to buy NTT Data Group Corp., with the deal worth ¥2.37 trillion ($16.3 billion) expected to boost its AI ambitions and simplify the corporate structure.
The Japanese company will start the settlement on June 26, it said in a statement Friday. NTT, which owns about 58% of NTT Data, had last month offered ¥4,000 for every share it doesn't already own in the company with plans to take it private.
The takeover of NTT Data, one of the world's largest data center operators, would put artificial intelligence at the heart of NTT group, expanding the global reach of its various units. About one-third owned by the government, NTT competes with KDDI Corp. and SoftBank Corp. in the growing AI race, at a time Tokyo is pushing companies to develop a homegrown AI platform to vie with the likes of OpenAI and China's DeepSeek.
The move also comes as Japanese conglomerates are under pressure from regulators to streamline their corporate structures. In February, the Tokyo Stock Exchange cautioned companies with parent-affiliate listings to better protect minority shareholders' interests, stepping up its long-burning campaign to reduce such arrangements.
Since then, NEC Corp. has acquired unit NEC Networks & System Integration Corp., while Bloomberg News reported Toyota Motor Corp. Chairman Akio Toyoda's plan to buy Toyota Industries Corp. The moves have fueled speculation that more firms may follow suit. NTT previously acquired its cash-generating wireless carrier NTT Docomo Inc. in 2020.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
43 minutes ago
- Time of India
Toyota Land Cruiser LC 300 Hybrid revealed: Most powerful LC ever with 475 hp!
Japanese Automaker Toyota has revealed the Toyota Land Cruiser LC300 Hybrid in the Australian markets. The SUV features a new petrol-hybrid powertrain delivering a combined output of 457 hp, making it the most powerful Land Cruiser ever. The Japanese automaker has also refreshed the Land Cruiser 300 with subtle design enhancements and features. The new Land Cruiser 300 Hybrid is scheduled to launch in Australia in the first half of 2026, with other markets to follow. There is no confirmation on when TKM ( Toyota Kirloskar Motor ) will bring the LC 300 petrol hybrid to India. Talking about the new hybrid powertrain, the new Hybrid LC gets a newly developed 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 petrol engine , coupled with an electric motor in a parallel hybrid setup. Together, this configuration delivers a combined output of 457 hp and 790 nm of torque. It comes paired with a 10-speed automatic transmission and also gets 4x4. The same engine also does the job in the Lexus LX 700h luxury SUV. In addition to the new petrol-hybrid powertrain, the Land Cruiser 300 hybrid features a few subtle design revisions when compared to the regular model. It features a redesigned front bumper and a slightly enlarged air intake, along with HEV-specific badging on the boot lid. These cosmetic tweaks are limited to the hybrid model, as the GR Sport variant, despite sharing the same hybrid powertrain retains its original exterior design. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Ductless Air Conditioners Are Selling Like Crazy [See Why] Keep Cool Click Here Undo VinFast VF7, VF6 Review: Good for India or not?| TOI Auto Moving inside, the changes are minimal. The most notable update is a revised digital instrument cluster that includes hybrid-specific displays and graphics. The infotainment system also sees an upgrade, now featuring a larger 12.3-inch touchscreen. In the boot area, it now gets a 1,500-watt power outlet. Talking about the model available in India, it's available in two variants - ZX and GR-S, priced from Rs 2.31 crores (ex-showroom). The SUV is powered by a 3.3-litre twin-turbo V6 diesel engine, generating 309 hp and 700 Nm of peak torque. This powerhouse is mated to a 10-speed automatic torque converter transmission, sending power to all four wheels via a full-time 4WD system. Discover everything about the automotive world at Times of India .
Mint
an hour ago
- Mint
Softbank's biggest bet: Masayoshi Son plans trillion-dollar AI hub in Arizona. Details here
SoftBank Group's founder Masayoshi Son is seeking to team up with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co to build a trillion-dollar industrial complex in Arizona for manufacturing robots and artificial intelligence. The billionaire aims to build a version of the vast manufacturing hub in China's Shenzhen that would bring back high-tech manufacturing to the US, according to sources known to Bloomberg. The park may comprise production lines for AI-powered industrial robots. Codenamed 'Project Crystal Land', the Arizona complex represents the 67-year-old SoftBank chief's most ambitious attempt in a career that's spanned numerous bet-the-house bids, thousands-fold returns and billions of dollars in losses, said Bloomberg. SoftBank officials are expecting the Taiwanese maker of Nvidia Corp's advanced AI chips to play a prominent role in the project, although the exact plan is not clear. TSMC already plans to invest $165 billion in the US and has started mass production at its first Arizona factory. It is also not clear whether TSMC would be interested, the news report suggests. SoftBank officials have been in touch with federal and state government officials to discuss possible tax breaks for companies building factories or otherwise investing in the industrial park. Son has compiled a list of SoftBank Vision Fund portfolio companies that might take part in the Arizona manufacturing hub. SoftBank-backed startups working on robotics and automation technologies, such as Agile Robots SE may set up production facilities at the industrial complex, said the news agency. The plans' progress highly depends on support from the Trump administration and state officials. While the project may require as much as $1 trillion to execute, the actual scale depends on interest from big technology companies, the news report said. While exploring the Arizona project, Softbank also plans to invest as much as $30 billion into OpenAI. It's also seeding money into the Stargate venture with OpenAI, Oracle and Abu Dhabi's MGX, seeking to put hundreds of billions of dollars into data centres and related infrastructure around the world. Those outlays come as SoftBank's cash stood at $23 billion at the end of March. The Tokyo-based company also raised around $4.8 billion this month by selling its stake in T-Mobile US. The Softbank founder's multiple investments in projects that proceed in fits and starts make it difficult to determine how committed he is to any one venture, said the news agency The billionaire is often goaded by the desire to boost SoftBank's stock price and repay retail investors who've held onto the company's shares from before the dot-com boom and bust. Many investors have waited for decades for the stock to recover, said sources known to Bloomberg. If Son's primary motivation is to clear the way for AI, it may be more cost-efficient to encourage partnerships that link manufacturing expertise with that of AI engineers and specialists in fields from medicine to robotics, and incubating smaller companies, Melissa Otto, the head of research at Visible Alpha told Bloomberg, But pouring cash into data centres may help lower the cost of developing AI applications and spur broader adoption, she said. 'He's a long-term thinker, and he takes risks,' Otto said. 'It's just too early to tell.'
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Banks are financing their own multitrillion-dollar nightmare
If you come home early from vacation and find robbers ransacking your house, you could call the police and try to stop the crime. But the true alpha move would be to help the robbers load your valuables onto the truck and then tell them which of your neighbors are also on vacation in exchange for a cut of the profits. Banks are choosing the alpha option, basically abetting theft from themselves by backing new projects to extract and burn fossil fuels, thus stoking the planetary heating that stunts economic growth and their own insurance and mortgage businesses. Of course, these financial companies do get a cut of the short-term profits from this environmental sabotage. And by abandoning the pretense of siding with the climate, they avoid political blowback from a US government that has declared war on it. But the long-term result will be a global economy trillions of dollars poorer and far less stable, impoverishing just about everyone, including the banks. The world's 65 biggest banks delivered $869.4 billion in financing to fossil-fuel companies last year, up $162.5 billion from 2023, according to a new report by the Rainforest Action Network, the Sierra Club, and several other nonprofit groups. Banks have funneled $7.9 trillion in loans and underwriting to these polluting industries since the Paris climate accords took effect in 2016, by the report's measure. This doesn't include any investments by banks' asset-management units, which amount to hundreds of billions of dollars more. Bloomberg Last year's financing surge reversed two years of declines and coincided with a turn of political sentiment against 'woke' environmental, social and governance considerations in business. Climate actions drew some of the harshest attacks, with President Donald Trump and other conservatives blaming them for rising energy prices. Such claims helped Trump win a second term. On his first day in office, he declared that his predecessor's foolish concern for the climate had created a 'national energy emergency' that hurt Americans' finances. His prescription has been to attack any public or private activity meant to slow the burning of fossil fuels. Live Events Banks saw the direction that the wind was blowing and quickly changed tack. The biggest immediately quit the Net Zero Banking Alliance, a group that vows to help eliminate greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050. They claim to still have their own goals for curbing emissions, but they've apparently given up trying to make their actions match their words. To meet the Paris Agreement 's rapidly fading stretch goal of holding global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial averages, energy financing should favor green projects over fossil fuels by a 4-to-1 ratio, according to BloombergNEF. In 2023, the latest data available, the ratio was just 0.89-to-1. Boosting fossil-fuel financing last year probably didn't move that ratio in the right direction. Bloomberg Meanwhile, the economic damage caused by a heating planet keeps mounting. Global climate-related costs — including insured and uninsured losses, government relief spending and higher insurance premiums — have topped $18.5 trillion since January 2000, Bloomberg Intelligence estimated recently. The US alone accounted for $7.7 trillion of the damage, or 36% of its growth in gross domestic product over that stretch. In just the 12 months through April, US climate-related costs totaled nearly $1 trillion, BI said, roughly matching bank financing for fossil fuels during that time. You might argue economic activity is economic activity, that building a house is basically the same as rebuilding a house, that government disaster relief is no different from any other flavor of government spending. But simply responding to disasters again and again is no way to grow an economy. Money spent to rebuild houses, bridges and roads is money not spent on college educations, better infrastructure or other productivity-boosting measures. It steals growth from the future. A National Bureau of Economic Research paper last fall estimated that a planet hotter by 3C — its current trajectory — would have a GDP that was smaller by more than a third. A study last week from the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy found that a complete rollback of the Inflation Reduction Act's climate measures, something Trump and congressional Republicans have been working hard to do, would shave $1.1 trillion from US GDP alone over the next decade. It would also kill 22,800 Americans, take $160 billion from American incomes and cause the average home's energy bill to be $206 higher. Talk about an emergency. But if you need a more immediate climate threat to finance profits to be convinced, you can already see one in the growing crisis in home insurance. Every new wildfire, flood, tornado and hurricane exposes just how underinsured and underprepared Americans are for such disasters, putting possibly $2 trillion in home valuations at risk. Given the political reality, it's understandable for banks to speak softly about protecting the planet and their own future profits. Helping fossil fuels build an even bigger stick with which to beat them makes much less sense.
