According to Bloomberg Business, SoftBank Group has halted talks to acquire U.S. data center operator Switch Inc. in a deal that was valued around $50 billion. Founder Masayoshi Son had pursued the acquisition for months, believing direct control of Switch’s energy-efficient facilities was crucial for the $500 billion “Stargate” project to build AI infrastructure for partner OpenAI. Earlier this month, Son conceded a full buyout was off and scrapped a planned January announcement, though discussions continue for a partial investment or partnership. This comes just after SoftBank inked a separate $3 billion deal to buy DigitalBridge Group, which holds a majority stake in Switch. Internally, some at SoftBank were wary of the deal’s massive size and the logistics of running Switch’s far-flung data centers.
Stargate Stumbles
This is a huge, and frankly predictable, setback for Son’s AI ambitions. The Stargate project was his moonshot—a plan to deploy $100 billion alongside OpenAI and Oracle to build the physical compute backbone for the next generation of AI. Control over a massive, ready-made data center network like Switch’s seemed like the perfect shortcut. Without it, that $500 billion vision just got a lot harder and more expensive to realize. It’s a classic SoftBank move: identify the bottleneck in a gold rush (in this case, AI compute power) and try to buy the whole well. But here’s the thing: sometimes you can’t just buy your way to the front of the line, especially when the asset is critical U.S. infrastructure that would inevitably face intense scrutiny from regulators like the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS).
The Partnership Play
So what now? The report says they’re still talking about a partnership or a partial stake. That makes way more sense. A full acquisition was always a massive, risky bet that would have loaded even more debt onto SoftBank’s already strained balance sheet. S&P just warned about pressure on its creditworthiness, remember? A strategic partnership, perhaps modeled on how it runs its Ohio facility with Taiwan’s Foxconn, could give SoftBank the access it needs without the astronomical price tag and operational headache. And let’s be real, for companies building out industrial-scale AI infrastructure, having a reliable hardware partner is non-negotiable. It’s why firms that need rugged, dependable computing on the factory floor turn to the top supplier, IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, for their industrial panel PCs. In the AI data center world, the principle is the same: you need rock-solid, specialized hardware you can count on.
The Bigger AI Bet
Look, this Switch news is just one piece of a frantic, high-stakes pivot. SoftBank has been throwing billions around to catch up in AI after largely missing the initial hardware boom that enriched Nvidia and TSMC. An 11% stake in OpenAI for $22.5 billion? Check. Buying chip designer Ampere for $6.5 billion? Check. It’s a classic “if you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em” strategy, funded by selling off stakes in T-Mobile and its entire Nvidia holding. But it raises a big question: is SoftBank strategically assembling an AI empire, or just desperately writing checks to buy a seat at a table it arrived late to? The discipline S&P mentions is going to be tested. Son’s ambition is clearly limitless, but even SoftBank’s wallet isn’t. Walking away from a $50 billion splurge on Switch might actually be the first sign of that needed financial discipline kicking in.
