SoftBank Doubles Down on US AI Ambitions with $100B Investment Pledge and Stargate Expansion

Tokyo, Japan 2025 – SoftBank Group Corp., the Japanese investment powerhouse led by visionary founder Masayoshi Son, is accelerating its “America First” strategy with a landmark $100 billion commitment to U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure over the next four years, aiming to create 100,000 high-tech jobs and solidify America’s lead in the global AI race. The pledge, first announced in December 2024 alongside President Donald Trump, reached a pivotal milestone this week with the expansion of the Stargate Project, adding five new AI data centers across key U.S. states.

Headquartered in Tokyo’s bustling Minato district, SoftBank has long been a trans-Pacific titan, but its 2025 moves signal a seismic shift toward deeper U.S. integration. The Stargate expansion, a joint venture with OpenAI and Oracle, will boost computing power to nearly 7 gigawatts—surpassing initial targets—and inject over $400 billion into the economy, with Nvidia supplying cutting-edge GPUs for the build. “This isn’t just investment; it’s about forging the future of intelligence,” Son declared during a virtual White House briefing, echoing his bold 2016 promise of $50 billion in U.S. jobs that predated Trump’s first term.

The wave began in January with the Stargate launch, a $500 billion behemoth blending SoftBank’s Vision Fund, Arm Holdings’ chip expertise, and OpenAI’s AGI pursuits. By March, SoftBank inked a $6.5 billion acquisition of U.S.-based Ampere Computing to supercharge energy-efficient processors for AI workloads. April saw a staggering $40 billion follow-on in OpenAI—$10 billion syndicated to partners—fueling models like the upcoming GPT-5. In May, Son floated a U.S.-Japan sovereign wealth fund to channel billions into tech and infrastructure, potentially opening doors to retail investors on both sides of the Pacific. The crescendo hit in August with a $2 billion stake in Intel, securing a 2% ownership slice at $23 per share and bolstering U.S. semiconductor dominance amid tariff talks.

SoftBank’s U.S. footprint now spans multiple hubs: Austin for AI ops, Phoenix for chip fabs via Arm, and emerging sites in Texas and Arizona for Stargate’s data centers. The firm, which reported its first annual profit in four years at $3.5 billion in Q4 FY2024, credits AI bets for the rebound—gains from ByteDance and Didi offsetting past Vision Fund stumbles like WeWork. With 25,000 jobs already projected from the latest Stargate phase, Son’s team is hiring aggressively in engineering, data science, and robotics, tapping Silicon Valley’s talent pool while navigating H-1B scrutiny.

Critics note risks: SoftBank’s aggressive spending echoes 2017’s Vision Fund excesses, and geopolitical tensions could snag syndication. Yet, as Trump touted at a Mar-a-Lago summit, “Masayoshi’s vision is powering America’s renaissance.” For SoftBank, this U.S. pivot isn’t relocation—it’s reinvention, blending Japanese precision with American scale to chase artificial superintelligence. As Son often quips, “The day before something is truly a breakthrough, it’s just a crazy idea.” In 2025, that idea is reshaping the world, one gigawatt at a time.