SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son on Monday downplayed the decision to offload the conglomerate’s entire Nvidia stake, saying he “was crying” over parting with the shares.

Speaking at a forum in Tokyo Monday, Son addressed SoftBank’s November disclosure that the firm had sold its holding in the American chip darling for $5.83 billion. 

According to Son, SoftBank wouldn’t have made the move if it didn’t need to bankroll its next artificial intelligence investments, including a big bet on OpenAI and data center projects. 

“I don’t want to sell a single share. I just had more need for money to invest in OpenAI and other projects, Son said during the FII Priority Asia forum. “I was crying to sell Nvidia shares.”

Son’s comments are consistent with what analysts and other Softbank executives said in November, describing the sale as part of broader efforts to bolster SoftBank Vision Fund’s AI war chest.

SoftBank has doubled down on its AI plans this year with a series of projects, including work on Stargate Project data centers and the acquisition of U.S. chip designer Ampere Computing.

The Japanese giant could also “potentially” increase its investment in OpenAI depending on the performance of the ChatGPT maker and the valuation of further rounds, a person familiar with the matter previously told CNBC.

Earlier this year, Son said that SoftBank was “all in” on OpenAI and predicted the AI startup would one day become the most valuable company in the world. 

So far, that bet has reaped some dividends, with SoftBank reporting last month that its second-quarter net profit more than doubled to 2.5 trillion yen ($16.6 billion), driven by valuation gains in its OpenAI holdings.

However, SoftBank’s massive AI bets come amid growing fears and jitters in markets about a potential AI bubble. 

In his Monday talk, Son also pushed back against these concerns, arguing that those who talk about an AI bubble are “not smart enough.”

He predicted that “super [artificial] intelligence” and AI robots will generate at least 10% of global gross domestic product over the long term, which he said would outweigh trillions of dollars of investment into the technology.

The cost of your smartphone might rise, analysts are warning, as the AI boom clogs up supply chains and a recent change by Nvidia to its products could make it worse.

AI data centers, on which tech giants globally are spending hundreds of billions of dollars, require chips from suppliers, like Nvidia, which relies on many different components and companies to create its coveted graphics processing units.

But other companies like AMD, the hyperscalers like Google and Microsoft, and other component suppliers all rely on this supply chain.

Many parts of the supply chain can’t keep up with demand, and it’s slowing down components that are critical for some of the world’s most popular consumer electronics. Those components are seeing huge spikes in prices, threatening price rises for the end product and could even lead to shortages of some devices.

“We see the rapid increase in demand for AI in data centers driving bottlenecks in many areas,” Peter Hanbury, partner in the technology practice at Bain & Company, told CNBC.

One of the starkest assessments came from Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu, CEO of Chinese tech giant Alibaba.

Wu, whose company is building its own AI infrastructure and designs its own chips, said last week that there are shortages across semiconductor manufacturers, memory chips and storage devices like hard drives.

“There is a situation of undersupply,” Wu said, adding that the “supply side is going to be a relatively large bottleneck.” He added this could last two to three years.

Bain and Co.’s Hanbury said there are shortages of hard disk drives, or HDDs, which store data. HDDs are used in the data center. These are preferred by hyperscalers,: big companies like Microsoft and Google. But, with HDDs at capacity, these firms have shifted to using solid-state drives, or SSDs, another type of storage device.

However, these SSDs are key components for consumer electronics.

The other big focus is on a type of chip under the umbrella of memory called dynamic random-access memory or DRAM. Nvidia’s chips use high-bandwidth memory which is a type of chip that stacks multiple DRAM semiconductors.

Memory prices have surged as a result of the huge demand and lack of supply. Counterpoint Research said it expects memory prices to rise 30% in the fourth quarter of this year and another 20% in early 2026. Even small imbalances in supply and demand can have major knock on effects on memory pricing. And because of the demand for HBM and GPUs, chipmakers are prioritizing these over other types of semiconductors.

“DRAM is certainly a bottleneck as AI investments continue to feed the imbalance between demand and supply with HBM for AI being prioritized by chipmakers,” MS Hwang, research director at Counterpoint Research, told CNBC.

“Imbalances of 1-2% can trigger sharp price increases and we’re seeing that figure hitting 3% levels at the moment – this is very significant.”

The problem is, Nvidia is increasingly using the latest generation of LPDDR memory, which is also used by high-end consumer electronics makers such as Samsung and Apple.

Typically, the industry would just be dealing with demand for this product from a handful of big electronics players. But now Nvidia, which has huge scale, is entering the mix.

“We also see a bigger risk on the horizon is with advanced memory as Nvidia’s recent pivot to LPDDR means they’re a customer on the scale of a major smartphone maker — a seismic shift for the supply chain which can’t easily absorb this scale of demand,” Hwang from Counterpoint Research said.

From chip manufacturers like TSMC, Intel and Samsung, there is only so much capacity. If there is huge demand for certain types of chips, then these companies will prioritize those, especially from their larger customers. That can lead to shortages of other types of semiconductors elsewhere.

Memory chips, in particular DRAM which has seen prices shoot up, is of particular concern because it’s used in so many devices from smartphones to laptops. And this could lead to price rises in the world’s favorite electronics.

DRAM and storage represent around 10% to 25% of the bill of materials for a typical PC or smartphone, according to Hanbury of Bain & Co. A price increase of 20% to 30% in these components would increase the total bill of materials costs by 5% to 10%.

“In terms of timing, the impact will likely start shortly as component costs are already increasing and likely accelerate into next year,” Hanbury said.

On top of this, there is now demand from players involved in AI data centers like Nvidia, for components that would have typically been used for consumer devices such as LPDDR which adds more demand to a supply constrained market.

If electronics firms can’t get their hands on the components needed for their devices because they’re in short supply or going toward AI data centers, then there could be shortages of the world’s most popular gadgets.

“Beyond the rise in cost there’s a second issue and that’s the inability to secure enough components, which constrains the production of electronic devices,” Counterpoint Research’s Hwang said.

Xiaomi, the third-biggest smartphone vendor globally, said it expects that consumers will see “a sizeable rise in product retail prices,” according to a Reuters reported this month.

Jeff Clark, chief operating officer at Dell, this month said the price rises of components is “unprecedented.”

“We have not seen costs move at the rate that we’ve seen,” Clark said on an earnings call, adding that the pressure is seen across various types of memory chips and storage hard drives.

Samsung Electronics on Monday announced the launch of its first multi-folding smartphone as it races to keep pace with innovations from fast-moving rivals. 

The long-anticipated “Galaxy Z TriFold” will go on sale in South Korea on Dec. 12, with launches to follow in other markets including China, Taiwan, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates, the company said in a press release. 

The phone will be available in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2026, with more details to be shared later, the South Korean tech giant added. The Galaxy Z Trifold will ship as a single model in black with 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage, priced at 3,594,000 South Korean won ($2,449).

The device uses two inward-folding hinges to open into a 10-inch display — a tad smaller than the 11th-generation iPad’s 11-inch display — with a 2160 x 1584 resolution.

When its screen panels are folded, the device is measures 12.9 millimeters (0.5 inches) thick — slightly more than the Galaxy Z Fold6 at 12.1 mm and the latest Galaxy Z Fold7 at 8.9 mm.

“Samsung’s first tri-fold model will ship in very limited volume, but scale is not the objective,” Liz Lee, associate director at Counterpoint Research, said in a statement shared with CNBC.

“With competitive dynamics set to shift materially in 2026, especially with Apple’s expected entry into the foldable segment, Samsung is positioning this device as a multi-fold pilot to reinforce its technology leadership.”

Lee added that Samsung’s latest product is meant to test durability, hinge design and software performance while gathering real-world user insights before wider commercialization.

The phone’s three foldable panels can also run three apps vertically side by side, and offer a desktop-like mode without a separate display. 

The TriFold features Samsung’s largest battery capacity among its foldable models and supports super-fast charging that reaches 50% in 30 minutes.

TM Roh, who was recently appointed Samsung Electronics co-CEO and head of the Device eXperience division, said the Galaxy Z TriFold reflects years of work on foldable designs and aims to balance portability, performance and productivity in one device.

Samsung was an early innovator of folding smartphones, unveiling its first foldable device in 2019. While the market has remained relatively small, new competitors have continued to enter, including Chinese brands that have proven competitive in both price and dimension.

In September, telecommunications giant Huawei announced its second-generation trifold phone for the Chinese market, measuring 12.8 mm thick when folded.

This year has also seen Chinese brands like Honor launch foldable smartphones in international markets. Honor was spun off from Huawei in 2020 in a bid to avoid U.S. sanctions and tap international markets.

Like Samsung’s other recent foldables, the TriFold is rated IP48, meaning it is water-resistant up to 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes but offers limited dust protection.