SoftBank Group announced on Sept. 24 that it completed the largest high‑yield corporate bond sale in history, raising $11.1 billion to finance a sweeping series of artificial‑intelligence and semiconductor investments. Founder and Chief Executive Masayoshi Son said the capital will cement SoftBank’s role as the world’s premier AI platform, spanning everything from chip design to data‑center construction.
OpenAI stake expands to roughly 13 %
SoftBank first put $500 million into OpenAI in 2024 and has since added about $30 billion in 2025, with a further $30 billion slated for 2026. The final tranche is expected to close next week, bringing SoftBank’s ownership to roughly 13 percent of the ChatGPT maker. Son declared in 2025 that he was “all in” on OpenAI. By the end of June, the rising private‑fundraising valuations at OpenAI generated $45 billion in unrealised gains for SoftBank, although a public listing has been delayed, postponing any realisation of those gains.
DigitalBridge acquisition and infrastructure push
In December 2025 SoftBank agreed to buy digital‑infrastructure investor DigitalBridge for $4 billion. The firm owns data‑centers, cell‑tower portfolios, fibre networks and edge‑infrastructure projects, including the Stargate data‑center development scheme.
Robotics, chips and new partnerships
SoftBank’s October 2025 agreement to acquire ABB’s robotics business for $5.4 billion underscores Son’s long‑term belief in robotics as a growth engine. Earlier this year the company hired banks to explore a spinoff of its autonomous‑robotics holdings, branded “Roze.”
On Aug. 18 SoftBank disclosed a $2 billion equity investment in Intel, citing confidence that U.S. chip manufacturing will expand further. Intel’s share surge over the three months to June added a valuation gain of ¥1.33 trillion ($8.39 billion) to SoftBank’s holding.
Stargate joint venture and Texas data‑center
The Stargate joint venture, linking SoftBank, OpenAI and Oracle, was unveiled by President Trump in Jan. 2025. The administration announced that the partners could invest up to $500 billion over four years. In August 2025 SoftBank CFO Yoshimitsu Goto said negotiations had delayed the project’s site decisions. In January, SoftBank and OpenAI each contributed $500 million to SB Energy, SoftBank’s data‑center subsidiary, which plans to build and operate a 1.2‑gigawatt OpenAI data centre in Texas.
Additional AI and chip deals
SoftBank’s portfolio also includes a $6.5 billion acquisition of Ampere Computing, a U.S. chip designer that creates data‑center CPUs based on Arm’s architecture. Arm Holdings, still majority‑owned by SoftBank, reported a market value of ¥36.8 trillion ($232.41 billion) in Aug. 2026, reflecting the broader semiconductor boom. In 2024 SoftBank bought British AI‑chipmaker Graphcore for an undisclosed sum, and in 2025 it purchased the UK‑based chip designer for $5 billion, later selling the stake in the second half of 2025.
Overall, SoftBank’s aggressive financing and acquisition strategy positions the conglomerate at the heart of the AI and semiconductor supply chain, from chip design to the massive data‑center infrastructure that will power the next generation of large‑language models.
Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
