SoftBank Group Corp. has inked a $4.04 billion deal to buy DigitalBridge Group Inc., a private equity firm that invests in technology businesses.

The companies announced the all-cash transaction today a few hours after insiders leaked the news to Bloomberg. SoftBank is paying $16 per share for DigitalBridge, a 16% premium to the firm’s last unaffected stock price.

NYSE-listed DigitalBridge has about $108 billion in assets under management. One of its portfolio companies is Vantage Data Centers Management Company LLC, a data center builder that is helping OpenAI Group PBC construct a $15 billion-plus Starlink campus in Wisconsin. The site is expected to host four artificial intelligence data centers with a combined computing capacity of nearly 1 gigawatt.

Vantage is working on an even larger AI campus in Texas. The site, which is known as Frontier, has a construction budget of over $25 billion. It’s set to host 10 data centers optimized to host liquid-cooled graphics card servers. Vantage is building Frontier and OpenAI’s Wisconsin site in parallel with more than a dozen other facilities worldwide.

DigitalBridge also has a stake in another data center operator, AtlasEdge Ltd., that has a narrower focus. The London-based company builds edge data centers, relatively smaller server clusters that are located closer to users than standard cloud facilities. That proximity reduces network traffic travel times, which is important for certain latency-sensitive applications.

Beyond the data center market, DigitalBridge has invested in more than a dozen network infrastructure companies. Several  of them specialize in building cell towers for internet providers. There’s also Boingo Wireless Inc., which operates small-scale wireless networks at locations such as airports.

The acquisition will buy SoftBank not only DigitalBridge’s portfolio of companies but also a technology infrastructure lending business. DigitalBridge Credit, as the unit is known, provides loans for projects such as data center construction initiatives. Additionally, the investment firm has a venture capital arm that backs startups in the data center market and adjacent verticals such as cybersecurity. 

“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, and help unlock breakthroughs that move humanity forward,” said SoftBank Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son.

Private equity firms such as DigitalBridge often have a say in the business decisions of their portfolio companies. Following the deal, SoftBank could potentially leverage that operational involvement to boost its other businesses.

The Japanese tech giant has a subsidiary called SB Energy that develops renewable energy installations in the U.S. In theory, the data center operators backed by DigitalBridge could buy electricity from SB Energy to power their future facilities. Additionally, they could expand their use of chips based on designs from Arm Holdings plc, in which SoftBank has a majority stake.

The company expects to complete the acquisition in the second half of 2026. DigitalBridge CEO Marc Ganzi will remain at the helm of the investment firm after the transaction closes. 

Photo: SoftBank