Masayoshi Son has never been one for half-measures. The SoftBank Group founder’s latest move — a reported $6 billion bid for a majority stake in OpenAI-backed humanoid robot maker 1X Technologies — fits a pattern that has defined the Japanese conglomerate’s reinvention: aggressive capital deployment at the intersection of artificial intelligence and physical hardware.
The Information reported Thursday that SoftBank is in talks to acquire control of 1X, whose NEO home robot sells for roughly $20,000 or rents for $499 per month. OpenAI first backed the Norwegian-founded company in 2023 alongside Tiger Global, and acquisition discussions reportedly took place last year — though SoftBank now appears poised to win the prize.
From Factory Arms to Household Helpers
The 1X move extends a robotics shopping spree that began last year, when SoftBank snapped up ABB’s robotics division for $5.4 billion. But the company’s ambitions stretch well beyond mechanical limbs and grasping hands. In Osaka, SoftBank is teaming up with South Korean battery manufacturer Cosmos Lab and AI firm DeltaX on a joint venture to produce large-format cells and energy storage systems. Production is slated to begin in the fiscal year ending March 2028, with mass manufacturing following a year later. By fiscal 2030, the venture targets annual revenue exceeding 100 billion yen — roughly $6.4 billion.
The storage systems are designed to feed the power-hungry data centers that underpin AI workloads, an increasingly critical piece of the infrastructure puzzle as compute demands surge.
A Balance Sheet Under Strain
Funding this sprawling vision requires capital — and lots of it. SoftBank is preparing a 1 trillion yen bond sale to bankroll AI investments and refinance existing debt. The company has already committed $5 billion to the Stargate data center project and can invest up to $35 billion in OpenAI, according to available disclosures. A separate entity, Roze AI, has been established for additional AI infrastructure work.
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OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar’s public endorsement of a diversified supplier base — naming SoftBank alongside Microsoft, Nvidia and Oracle as one of more than nine compute providers — underscores how deeply embedded the Japanese group has become in the AI ecosystem, from raw computing power to robot hardware to battery technology.
Market Skepticism Persists
Investors remain wary of the strategy’s execution risk. The stock’s 30-day annualized volatility sits at a hefty 73 percent, reflecting nervousness about the scale of these bets. In Tokyo trading, shares slipped 0.87 percent to 5,118 yen following the 1X report. The German-listed paper changed hands at 28.30 euros Thursday, up 0.9 percent from Wednesday’s close of 28.06 euros, though the seven-day picture shows a 2.1 percent decline. The secondary article’s figures show a slightly wider weekly drop of 2.9 percent and a Wednesday gain of 1.4 percent, with the relative strength index at 42.7 — neutral territory.
The company’s market capitalization stands at roughly 152.64 billion euros, suggesting investors broadly support the expansion strategy even as short-term price action remains choppy.
Filling the Neocloud Void
Beyond hardware, SoftBank is pursuing what Nikkei has dubbed a “neocloud” strategy — rolling out a proprietary operating system architecture internationally. Domestically, the company is pushing regionally distributed AI processing to support physical AI applications. Japan currently lacks a provider of CoreWeave’s scale, and SoftBank appears intent on claiming that territory.
The strategic picture is becoming clearer: SoftBank is converting capital from portfolio sales into a vertically integrated bet on AI’s physical layer — the chips, the cloud, the batteries and now the robots that will inhabit homes. Whether household androids become a mass-market product remains an open question, but Son is clearly betting that capital intensity beats caution in the race to define the category.
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