SoftBank Boosts AI Infrastructure with $4 Billion DigitalBridge Acquisition Deal
In Focus
- The acquisition will boost SoftBank’s ability to scale digital infrastructure
- The Japanese conglomerate will pay $16 for each DigitalBridge share
- DigitalBridge stock surged 54% in early trading
Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group has agreed to acquire private equity firm DigitalBridge Group in a $4 billion deal. According to Yahoo Finance, DigitalBridge is known to invest in digital infrastructure, including data centers. News of SoftBank’s data center acquisition deal caused DigitalBridge stock to surge 54% in early trading on December 29, 2025.
Details of the SoftBank DigitalBridge Deal
SoftBank will acquire DigitalBridge at $16 per share. This is about 15% higher than the company’s closing share price in December, 2025. By acquiring DigitalBridge, SoftBank expects to boost its ability to “originate, finance, operate, and scale digital infrastructure opportunities worldwide.”
“The buildout of AI infrastructure represents one of the most significant investment opportunities of our generation. SoftBank shares our DNA as builders and long-term investors committed to scaling transformational digital infrastructure,” DigitalBridge CEO Marc Ganzi stated in a statement posted on the SoftBank website.
DigitalBridge stock has gained about 23% this year. This gain pushed its market valuation to $2.5 billion. Bloomberg placed the company’s enterprise value at $3.8 billion, including debt. SoftBank expands its AI-driven infrastructure investment with the DigitalBridge acquisition weeks after it sold off its $5.8 billion stake in NVIDIA.
SoftBank’s Focus on AI Infrastructure
The merger is part of SoftBank’s digital infrastructure expansion strategy to leverage the AI-driven boom. SoftBank has been working to capitalize the growing demand for computing power that anchors AI applications.
“As AI transforms industries worldwide, we need more compute, connectivity, power, and scalable infrastructure. DigitalBridge is a leader in digital infrastructure, and this acquisition will strengthen the foundation for next-generation AI data centers, advance our vision to become a leading ASI platform provider,” SoftBank CEO and Chairman Masayoshi Son noted in a company statement.
In January 2025, SoftBank teamed up with OpenAI and Oracle to announce the $500 billion data center investment under the Stargate project. The project is focused on building data centers in the U.S. The Japanese investment firm committed to deploy $100 billion to the project immediately.
But Stargate’s rollout has been slower than initially planned, partly due to disagreements on data center locations. In September 2025, the three companies teamed up to establish five new Stargate data centers in Texas, New Mexico, Ohio, and the Midwest within the United States.
DigitalBridge’s Data Center Portfolio
DigitalBridge had an estimated $108 billion of assets under its management by September 30, 2025. DigitalBridge Group’s data center portfolio includes multiple digital infrastructure operators. These are AtlasEdge, AIMS, DataBank, Switch, Vantage Data Centers, and the Yondr Group.
SoftBank has made deals in the asset management industry before. In 2017, the Japanese investor acquired Fortress Investment Group for over $3 billion. SoftBank later sold its stake to a group that included Mubadala, which is Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, and Fortress’s own management.
