Key players include SoftBank Group (CEO Masayoshi Son), DigitalBridge Group (CEO Marc Ganzi), and DigitalBridge's portfolio firms like Vantage Data Centers, Zayo, Switch, and AtlasEdge. DigitalBridge, rebranded in 2021 from real estate firm Colony Capital (founded 1991), manages $108 billion in digital infrastructure assets including data centers, cell towers, fiber networks, and edge systems. Both firms collaborate on the Stargate project with OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX for AI computing sites in Texas, New Mexico, and Ohio.[Summary][1][2][3]
The acquisition builds on reports of talks earlier in December 2025, which drove DigitalBridge shares up 45%, followed by a 9.7% rise to $15.27 post-announcement; SoftBank sold its Nvidia stake in October 2025 to fund AI infrastructure shifts. It addresses surging AI demand for compute, power, and connectivity, positioning SoftBank beyond investments in Arm and OpenAI toward owning infrastructure.[1][2][3][4][Summary]
Newsworthy amid the AI infrastructure "battleground," as bottlenecks in electricity, data centers, and real estate constrain tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon; Son calls it key to artificial superintelligence, with DigitalBridge's assets providing immediate scale. Retail sentiment surged bullish, boosting DigitalBridge as a top ticker.[3][4][Summary]