SoftBank Bets Big on AI: $4B DigitalBridge Acquisition Boosts Infrastructure Capabilities

The acquisition of DigitalBridge offers SoftBank strategic positioning at the intersection of infrastructure ownership and the burgeoning demand for AI compute capacity. With data centers, fiber, towers and edge networks constituting critical bottlenecks for model training and deployment, acquiring an asset manager with US$108 billion AUM gives SoftBank both scale and control. It shifts some of the exposure from purely financial bets (e.g. AI startups or chip makers) toward owning tangible underpinnings of the AI ecosystem.

Valuation-wise, paying US$16 per share — a 15% premium over the recent closing price, but about 50% above a relevant 52-week average — reflects both investor expectations of the AI infrastructure market accelerating and a bet on regulatory risks and competition. The modest premium suggests SoftBank is being somewhat disciplined, though the long regulatory lead time (expected closing in H2 2026) introduces risk of policy shifts, antitrust scrutiny, or market dynamics altering in the interim.

Operationally, keeping DigitalBridge as an independent platform under existing leadership preserves managerial continuity and sector relationships, which are central when operating highly technical, geographically distributed infrastructure businesses. It reduces integration risk, though it limits immediate control synergies beyond strategic alignment and perhaps cost of capital benefits.

Financially, the deal complements SoftBank’s existing moves: selling its Nvidia stake for US$5.8 billion, and allocating large sums to OpenAI and projects like Stargate. It signals a broad shift toward what SoftBank terms “physical AI” — investing in compute, connectivity, and power infrastructure rather than purely software layers. This may insulate SoftBank if AI software markets face competition or pricing pressure, by owning parts of the supply chain that are harder to replicate.

However, several open questions and risks deserve attention: is the US$108B AUM generating sufficient returns to justify the cost of acquiring the minority of those assets? What is the corporate governance structure, how aligned are DigitalBridge’s limited partners and customers with SoftBank’s ASI vision? Will regulatory oversight — especially cross-border, infrastructure ownership, and critical national infrastructure designations — delay or materially alter SoftBank’s ability to deploy assets? And finally, whether this scaling of infrastructure becomes overcapacity, given capital intensity and energy requirements.