Japan's Nikkei Stock Average rose 0.8% to close at 39958.87 amid risk-on sentiment. "Equities worldwide continued to ride on the wave of U.S.' AI investment announcement, as well as blowout earnings from streaming giant Netflix,

Christopher McMahon, CEO of Aquinas Wealth Advisors and author of “Faithful Finances”, spoke with Quartz for the latest installment of our “Smart Investing” video series.

Find insight on Netflix, Microsoft, Cisco and more in the latest Market Talks covering Technology, Media and Telecom.

The partnership formed by Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank is due to invest up to $500 billion. SoftBank's shares rose 3.7% on Thursday in Tokyo trading after jumping 11% the day before. Elsewhere in Asia, the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia fell 0.6% to 8,383.50, while the Kospi in Seoul lost 0.8% to 2,526.98.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 37.13 points, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 130.92 and the Nasdaq composite jumped 252.56.

Netflix, Oracle and other technology stocks are lifting U.S. indexes as their profits pile higher and excitement builds around the moneymaking prospects of artificial intelligence. The S&P 500 rose 0.

SoftBank is negotiating a $500 million investment in Skild AI, a software company building a foundational model for robotics at a $4 billion valuation,

SoftBank Group Corp. is in talks to lead a $500 million funding round for Skild AI, a startup building robotics software, according to people familiar with the matter.

SoftBank is slated to invest in robotics startup Skild AI in a transaction that would value the startup at $4B, the Financial Times reports.

Helion, a startup working to generate electricity from nuclear fusion, on Tuesday said it has raised $425 million in venture funding from a group of investors including SoftBank Group's Vision Fund 2.

Seattle-area company Helion Energy gets $425 million from investors including Sam Altman and Softbank to pursue clean energy's "Holy Grail."