SoftBank Group’s planned $4 billion acquisition of DigitalBridge has moved substantially closer to completion, turning what began as another major AI-related deal into an important piece of Masayoshi Son’s increasingly infrastructure-heavy artificial intelligence strategy. DigitalBridge shareholders overwhelmingly approved the all-cash transaction in April 2026, and the European Commission subsequently cleared the acquisition, removing two important hurdles to SoftBank taking control of one of the world’s largest specialized digital-infrastructure investment firms.
The deal has not yet been described by the companies as completed, however. DigitalBridge’s September 2026 disclosures continue to refer to the anticipated acquisition by a SoftBank affiliate, while the original agreement targeted closing during the second half of 2026 subject to regulatory approvals and other customary conditions. That distinction is important because SoftBank has a definitive agreement and significant approvals behind it, but the acquisition should not be reported as a completed takeover until the companies formally announce closing.
What makes the transaction increasingly significant is the scale of the infrastructure platform SoftBank is buying. DigitalBridge reported approximately $120.6 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2026, spanning data centers, fiber networks, communications towers, small cells and edge infrastructure. SoftBank is therefore not merely buying another data-center operator; it is acquiring an investment and operating platform capable of financing and scaling the physical infrastructure on which AI services increasingly depend.
SoftBank Agreed to Pay $16 a Share for DigitalBridge
SoftBank and DigitalBridge announced the definitive acquisition agreement on December 29, 2025. Under the terms of the transaction, SoftBank agreed to indirectly acquire DigitalBridge’s outstanding common stock for $16 per share in cash, giving the company an enterprise value of approximately $4 billion. The offer represented a 15% premium to DigitalBridge’s closing share price on December 26 and a 50% premium to its unaffected 52-week average closing price measured as of December 4, 2025.
DigitalBridge’s board approved the transaction unanimously after receiving the unanimous recommendation of a special committee composed entirely of independent directors. The structure also preserves operational continuity: after closing, DigitalBridge is expected to continue operating as a separately managed platform led by CEO Marc Ganzi rather than being immediately absorbed into another SoftBank subsidiary.
SoftBank explicitly linked the acquisition to its artificial-intelligence ambitions. In its official announcement of the DigitalBridge transaction, the Japanese investment group said next-generation AI requires not only advances in models but also the infrastructure needed to train, deploy and serve those systems at global scale. DigitalBridge gives SoftBank an established mechanism for originating, financing and operating precisely those physical assets.
DigitalBridge Shareholders Overwhelmingly Approved the Acquisition
One of the transaction’s most important milestones arrived on April 23, 2026, when DigitalBridge shareholders voted on the SoftBank takeover. Approximately 69% of outstanding shares participated in the special meeting, and around 96% of votes cast — representing more than 121 million shares — supported the acquisition. The result satisfied the shareholder-approval requirement under the merger agreement.
That removed a significant source of transaction uncertainty. Shareholders were effectively being asked to accept $16 in cash rather than remain invested in DigitalBridge as an independent publicly traded company, and the overwhelming vote indicated broad support among participating investors for the consideration SoftBank offered.
DigitalBridge has continued operating and investing while the acquisition remains pending. Its 2026 activity includes digital-infrastructure investments and partnerships across multiple markets, demonstrating why SoftBank’s interest extends beyond acquiring a static portfolio of existing assets. It is purchasing an organization that can continue raising third-party capital and originating new infrastructure investments after the transaction closes.
European Regulators Have Also Cleared the Deal
The transaction also passed an important regulatory test in Europe. SoftBank formally notified the European Commission of the proposed concentration on March 30, 2026, with the filing describing SoftBank as acquiring sole control of DigitalBridge through a share purchase. The Commission reviewed the transaction under the European Union’s merger-control framework.
On April 27, the European Commission declared the concentration compatible with the common market. The clearance matters because DigitalBridge invests across international infrastructure markets, while SoftBank has technology, telecommunications and investment interests extending well beyond Japan.
Regulatory clearance in one major jurisdiction does not by itself establish that a global acquisition has formally closed. DigitalBridge’s latest corporate communications still refer to SoftBank’s acquisition as anticipated, which is why the correct September 2026 description is that the deal has advanced toward completion rather than that SoftBank already owns DigitalBridge.
DigitalBridge Has Grown Since the Deal Was Announced
The numbers behind DigitalBridge have also changed since SoftBank announced the transaction. At the end of 2025, the companies described DigitalBridge as managing approximately $108 billion in infrastructure assets. By June 30, 2026, DigitalBridge reported actual assets under management of approximately $120.56 billion, illustrating the scale of the investment platform SoftBank is preparing to acquire.
Assets under management should not be confused with assets that DigitalBridge itself owns outright. Much of that capital belongs to third-party investors participating through funds and investment vehicles managed by DigitalBridge. The strategic value to SoftBank is therefore not simply $120 billion of physical property, but an established asset-management platform capable of attracting outside capital and deploying it across digital infrastructure.
DigitalBridge currently says it has more than 45 portfolio companies and over 100 digital-infrastructure professionals. Its investment activities cover five principal categories: data centers, macro cell towers, fiber networks, small cells and edge infrastructure. That breadth matters because AI infrastructure depends on more than the buildings containing GPU servers; those facilities also require high-capacity connectivity and access to networks capable of moving enormous quantities of data.
AI Is Turning Data Centers Into Strategic Infrastructure
Generative AI has changed the economics of computing infrastructure because training and serving advanced models requires enormous concentrations of accelerators, networking equipment, storage and electricity. As AI usage expands from model training into inference for consumer and enterprise applications, infrastructure demand increasingly becomes a constraint on how rapidly AI companies can scale.
That has made data centers strategically important to companies that previously concentrated primarily on software, semiconductors or internet platforms. Hyperscale cloud companies are spending heavily on facilities and computing equipment, while AI developers are negotiating long-term access to enormous amounts of processing capacity. Power availability, grid connections and construction timelines have consequently become competitive variables in the AI industry.
Gignomist has previously examined how data-center expansion is running into growing infrastructure and community constraints, particularly as projects compete for electricity, water, land and transmission capacity. Those constraints help explain why SoftBank’s strategy increasingly extends beyond investing in AI models: access to capital and infrastructure can determine whether those models can actually be deployed at enormous scale.
DigitalBridge Gives SoftBank More Than Data Centers
Describing DigitalBridge purely as a data-center company understates the logic of the transaction. The company invests across communications towers, fiber networks, small cells and edge infrastructure as well as data centers, giving it exposure to multiple layers of the physical network that connects computing facilities with users and businesses.
Fiber is particularly important for AI because large clusters of computing hardware must exchange huge quantities of information at high speed. Data centers also need reliable connections to cloud regions, enterprises and internet exchange points, while edge facilities can position computing resources closer to users when applications require lower latency. AI infrastructure therefore depends on an interconnected system rather than isolated buildings filled with GPUs.
DigitalBridge’s portfolio illustrates that model. Its investments include data-center platforms in multiple regions as well as tower and fiber businesses serving telecommunications and enterprise customers. For SoftBank, acquiring the manager creates the potential to participate across more of the infrastructure chain instead of relying solely on investments in individual AI laboratories or semiconductor companies.
SoftBank’s AI Strategy Is Becoming a Full-Stack Capital Strategy
The DigitalBridge transaction becomes more meaningful when viewed alongside SoftBank’s other AI commitments. Son has repeatedly framed artificial intelligence — and ultimately what SoftBank calls Artificial Super Intelligence — as the central investment theme for the group. That strategy has produced large investments across models, semiconductors, robotics, energy and computing infrastructure.
Arm gives SoftBank exposure to processor architecture used across mobile devices, servers and increasingly AI computing systems. OpenAI gives the group a major financial position in one of the leading developers of frontier AI models. SoftBank has also pursued infrastructure projects intended to provide the enormous computing and energy capacity those models will require.
DigitalBridge adds a different capability: infrastructure investment management. Rather than SoftBank having to finance every data center, fiber network or connectivity asset entirely from its own balance sheet, DigitalBridge has decades of experience raising and managing institutional capital for infrastructure projects. That potentially allows SoftBank to combine its own AI investments with external capital from pension funds, sovereign investors and other institutional limited partners.
The OpenAI Commitment Shows the Scale of SoftBank’s Ambition
SoftBank’s financial commitment to AI has accelerated sharply during 2026. In February, the company agreed to make another $30 billion investment in OpenAI, divided into three $10 billion tranches scheduled for April, July and October. If completed as planned, SoftBank said its cumulative OpenAI investment would reach approximately $64.6 billion, representing an estimated 13% ownership interest.
Financing commitments of that scale demonstrate why infrastructure has become central to SoftBank’s strategy. An investment thesis built around frontier AI cannot depend solely on owning stakes in model developers because those companies need enormous quantities of computing capacity, electricity and networking infrastructure to turn model advances into commercially scalable services.
SoftBank has consequently been assembling exposure to several layers of the AI economy simultaneously. The approach carries considerable financial risk, but it also creates potential strategic connections between semiconductor architecture, model development, infrastructure financing, energy and data-center capacity.
DigitalBridge Could Help SoftBank Mobilize Outside Capital
One of the least discussed aspects of the acquisition may ultimately be the most important. DigitalBridge is an alternative asset manager, meaning its business model involves managing capital on behalf of investors rather than simply using its own balance sheet to acquire infrastructure. That provides SoftBank with an institutional fundraising and investment platform at a time when the cost of AI infrastructure is reaching extraordinary levels.
Building hyperscale data centers requires billions of dollars before considering the cost of the GPUs and other computing equipment installed inside them. Large AI infrastructure programs can therefore strain even the balance sheets of major technology companies, making partnerships with private-equity firms, infrastructure funds, banks and institutional investors increasingly important.
DigitalBridge’s approximately $120.6 billion AUM demonstrates its ability to operate within that capital ecosystem. If SoftBank can align those capabilities with its AI infrastructure strategy while maintaining the confidence of DigitalBridge’s third-party investors, it could finance a broader portfolio of projects than SoftBank could economically support alone.
That Opportunity Also Creates a Potential Tension
The acquisition is not without structural challenges. DigitalBridge manages money for outside investors whose objectives may not always align perfectly with SoftBank’s strategic AI ambitions. Those investors expect DigitalBridge to pursue opportunities according to agreed fund mandates and financial-return requirements rather than simply finance projects that benefit other SoftBank portfolio companies.
SoftBank will therefore need to preserve the credibility and independence of DigitalBridge’s investment process. The decision to keep DigitalBridge operating as a separately managed platform under Marc Ganzi appears designed partly to address that concern. Maintaining relationships with institutional investors will be essential if the value of the acquisition depends on DigitalBridge continuing to raise large pools of third-party capital.
There is also execution risk in SoftBank’s broader AI strategy. Data centers require substantial upfront investment and face constraints involving power availability, grid connections, construction costs and local regulation. AI demand is currently strong, but infrastructure investments have long useful lives, meaning investors must make assumptions about computing demand many years into the future.
DigitalBridge Is Still Expanding While the Deal Is Pending
DigitalBridge has remained active during 2026 rather than waiting passively for the SoftBank transaction to close. The company has continued announcing investments and partnerships across Asia, Europe and other markets, including new data-center and communications-infrastructure initiatives. In September, it also opened a Tokyo office to expand its Japanese investment platform.
That continuing activity matters for SoftBank because the company it agreed to acquire in December 2025 is still developing its global footprint. DigitalBridge’s infrastructure platform is therefore potentially more valuable strategically than a snapshot of its portfolio at the time of the original announcement would suggest.
Its growing presence in Asia is particularly relevant. SoftBank is headquartered in Japan but increasingly thinks about AI infrastructure as a global system, while DigitalBridge has investment experience across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Combining those networks could give SoftBank another route into regional data-center and connectivity markets where AI capacity is expanding rapidly.
The Deal Is About Controlling More of the AI Supply Chain
The original DigitalBridge announcement could easily be interpreted as another acquisition made during an AI investment boom. Nine months later, the strategic logic is clearer. SoftBank is attempting to build financial exposure and operational influence across multiple layers required to deliver AI at scale.
Models require computing hardware. Computing hardware requires data centers and electricity. Data centers require fiber and other network infrastructure to move information between facilities and users. All of those assets require enormous amounts of long-duration capital to build.
DigitalBridge sits directly inside that final layer. Its value to SoftBank is therefore not just the revenue of an asset manager or the immediate value of its investments, but its ability to connect infrastructure projects with institutional capital and operating expertise.
The Next Milestone Is Formal Completion
The DigitalBridge acquisition has made significant progress since its announcement. Shareholders have approved the $16-per-share transaction, European regulators have cleared the combination, and DigitalBridge has continued expanding its infrastructure investment platform while the closing process proceeds.
As of September 2026, however, investors should still distinguish approval from completion. DigitalBridge’s own recent communications continue to describe the SoftBank acquisition as anticipated, and the original transaction timetable called for closing in the second half of the year subject to remaining conditions.
If the deal closes, SoftBank will gain control of an infrastructure manager overseeing approximately $120.6 billion in assets at a moment when AI companies are competing not only for better models and chips but also for power, data centers and connectivity. That makes DigitalBridge a different kind of AI acquisition — one aimed at the physical and financial infrastructure underneath the technology rather than another application or model developer.
For SoftBank, that distinction may be precisely the point. Masayoshi Son’s AI strategy increasingly looks less like a collection of technology investments and more like an attempt to assemble the capital, computing and infrastructure layers required to support AI at global scale.
