SoftBank's $4 billion acquisition of Digital Bridge will give Masayoshi Son a new way to bring outside investors into his vast AI ambitions, as the billionaire seeks to build infrastructure projects too large to finance from his conglomerate's balance sheet alone. Marc Ganzi, chief executive of the $100bn-plus digital infrastructure manager, said Digital Bridge would become Soft Bank's "third-party infrastructure arm", raising money from institutional investors to finance data centres, power and other projects. The deal comes as Son faces fresh complications in financing his sprawling AI strategy.
Soft Bank this month launched one of the largest-ever junk-bond deals to help fund its Open AI investment. Meanwhile, SB Energy, the Soft Bank-controlled group tasked with building vast data centres for Open AI, has slowed preparations for an initial public offering. However, the completion of the Digital Bridge deal provides progress on Soft Bank's broader AI strategy.
Marc Ganzi said Son was seeking to control three layers of the AI "wedding cake": large language models through Soft Bank's stake in Open AI, chips through its ownership of Arm, and power and data centres through Digital Bridge. Digital Bridge's funds hold large stakes in data centre operators including Vantage, Switch and Data Bank, as well as Zayo, one of North America's largest independent fibre networks. Soft Bank's takeover valued Digital Bridge at about $4bn including debt.
Source: Financial Times Companies · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing