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- SoftBank Group is seeking up to $100B from Gulf investors, including in the UAE, for a new AI-focused fund.
- Its cumulative OpenAI investment totals about $64.6B, or roughly 13% of the company.
- SoftBank raised $11.1B in high-yield bonds in September, which has sharpened focus on its debt.
SoftBank is seeking up to $100B from Gulf investors for an AI acquisition fund while its roughly $65B OpenAI stake faces scrutiny over returns and leverage.
Lead
SoftBank Group (OTC: SFTBY; Tokyo: 9984) is seeking to raise as much as $100 billion from Gulf investors for a new fund that would buy companies and overhaul them with artificial intelligence and robotics. Founder Masayoshi Son has held preliminary talks in recent weeks with senior figures in the region, including in the United Arab Emirates. The fundraising was disclosed on October 9, 2026. No agreement has been signed.
The effort comes as SoftBank's roughly $65 billion commitment to OpenAI draws closer examination. OpenAI has delayed its initial public offering, which has put more attention on its revenue growth and on when SoftBank's capital will earn a return.
What Is SoftBank Planning With the New Fund?
SoftBank plans a vehicle that acquires operating businesses and improves their efficiency by deploying AI systems and robotics. That moves the group beyond minority stakes in technology start-ups and into control-oriented ownership, a model closer to private equity than to venture capital.
The scale is large. A $100 billion raise would rank among the biggest private fund efforts on record and would depend on Gulf sovereign and state-linked capital. Those investors have been central to the AI financing boom, and several are building domestic data center and compute capacity of their own.
Why Is SoftBank's OpenAI Bet Drawing Scrutiny?
The OpenAI position is drawing scrutiny because it is large, heavily financed and not yet liquid. SoftBank completed a $30 billion investment in OpenAI's latest funding round and finished the final tranche of its follow-on commitment in October. Its total of about $64.6 billion gives it a stake of roughly 13%.
The IPO delay matters because SoftBank cannot yet convert that paper value into cash. Investors are weighing the pace of OpenAI's revenue growth against the capital the sector is absorbing for chips, data centers and power. That has made SoftBank one of the most closely watched ai stocks outside the United States, with its share price moving on each development at OpenAI.
How Is SoftBank Financing Its AI Push?
SoftBank is financing the push with a mix of asset sales, borrowing and now outside capital. In September it sold $11.1 billion of high-yield bonds to help fund the OpenAI commitment. SoftBank shares rose more than 7% after that issuance, showing that equity investors were willing to look past borrowing costs in favor of the AI upside.
Credit markets are less forgiving. Rising leverage and the cost of high-yield debt raise the question of how far SoftBank can lean on its balance sheet. A Gulf-funded vehicle would shift part of the capital burden to external partners, and it would let the group earn management fees on assets it does not fully own.
Strategic Context
Son has framed AI as the organizing theme of SoftBank's next decade, and the fund fits that view. Investors who want to invest in ai now have routes ranging from chipmakers to model developers to infrastructure owners. SoftBank is trying to add a fourth: the operators that use AI to cut costs inside established companies.
The pitch also suits the Gulf. Sovereign funds there want exposure to AI value creation beyond chips and data centers, and they hold the liquidity to write checks of this size. Son's remarks on October 4 in Kyoto urging global cooperation to manage AI's growing power show he is pairing the fundraising with a broader public message about the technology.
What Are the Risks to the Plan?
The main risks are execution, valuation and timing. Buying companies and rebuilding them with AI is operationally demanding, and returns depend on the technology delivering measurable productivity gains rather than just lower projected costs. Gulf investors will also weigh SoftBank's leverage and the unrealized state of its OpenAI holding when setting terms.
A slower OpenAI revenue ramp, or a longer wait for a listing, would weigh on SoftBank's own credit profile and could complicate any fundraising.
Outlook
The next milestones are whether the preliminary Gulf talks become formal commitments and how OpenAI approaches its delayed listing. A successful raise would give SoftBank a large pool of external capital and reduce reliance on its own borrowing. A stalled one would leave the group more exposed to the performance of a single, illiquid asset. Either way, the outcome will indicate how much appetite remains among the world's largest pools of capital for AI spending at this scale.