Japan’s SoftBank on Monday said it has agreed to buy data center investment firm DigitalBridge for $4 billion as part of its artificial intelligence push.
The deal, which has been unanimously approved by a special committee of DigitalBridge’s board of directors, will see SoftBank acquire all the outstanding common stock of DigitalBridge for $16 per share in cash.
This represents a 15% premium to DigitalBridge’s closing share price on Dec. 26, according to SoftBank.
SoftBank CEO and Chairman Masayoshi Son said the acquisition “will strengthen the foundation for next-generation AI data centers” and advance the firm’s vision to become a leading “Artificial Super Intelligence” platform provider.
“As AI transforms industries worldwide, we need more compute, connectivity, power, and scalable infrastructure,” Son said in a statement.
Shares of DigitalBridge last jumped about 10%. The firm’s share price had climbed as much as 50% after Bloomberg reported a deal could be imminent.
The agreement between SoftBank and DigitalBridge comes amid a global boom for the infrastructure that underpins AI applications.
“The buildout of AI infrastructure represents one of the most significant investment opportunities of our generation,” DigitalBridge Marc Ganzi CEO said in a statement.
SoftBank’s “vision, capital strength, and global network will allow us to accelerate our mission with greater flexibility, invest with a longer-term horizon on behalf of our investors, and better serve the world’s leading technology companies as they scale their AI ambitions,” he added.
SoftBank recently sold its entire stake in U.S. chipmaker Nvidia for $5.83 billion to make room for its investment in OpenAI.
DigitalBridge describes itself as “a unique digital infrastructure business,” and has roughly $108 billion of assets under management as of the end of September, according to its website.
