SoftBank injects $457M into British AI chip startup Graphcore amid aggressive AGI push

SoftBank is pouring another massive sum into the AI race, this time betting big on a company many in the industry had already counted out.

The Japanese investment giant has injected $457 million into British AI chip startup Graphcore, according to a Companies House filing first reported by CNBC. The filing shows Graphcore issued a single share valued at roughly $457 million on April 10. A spokesperson for Graphcore confirmed the funding came from SoftBank.

The cash infusion marks another major move by SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son to tighten his grip on the infrastructure layer powering artificial intelligence. Son has spent the past two years pushing aggressively into AI chips, data centers, robotics, and large-scale compute projects as competition intensifies across the industry.

“SoftBank has funnelled $457 million into AI chip company Graphcore, which it acquired in 2024, Graphcore confirmed to CNBC.”

Graphcore was once viewed as one of the few startups capable of challenging Nvidia in AI hardware. The Bristol-based company raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors, including Microsoft, Sequoia, and BMW, before struggling to turn technical promise into commercial momentum.

SoftBank pumps $457M into Graphcore as Masayoshi Son races to dominate AI infrastructure

SoftBank acquired Graphcore in 2024 after the startup faced financial pressure and a shrinking market share. At the time, SoftBank said the company would work closely with Graphcore on artificial general intelligence, or AGI, the idea that AI systems could eventually match or surpass human intelligence across a broad range of tasks.

The latest funding appears to signal that SoftBank still sees Graphcore as a long-term strategic asset despite the company’s earlier struggles.

A person familiar with the arrangement told CNBC the $457 million represents only a portion of the funding Graphcore is expected to receive from SoftBank this year.

The investment fits into a much larger AI infrastructure campaign unfolding across SoftBank’s empire. The company has poured tens of billions into AI-related bets, including a major stake in OpenAI and participation in Stargate, the reported $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative involving OpenAI and Oracle.

The latest capital injection into Graphcore comes less than two weeks after reports emerged that SoftBank was targeting a $100 billion U.S. IPO for a new AI and robotics startup called Roze. According to the Financial Times, the Japanese conglomerate plans to spin out a standalone U.S.-listed company focused on AI data centers and robotics, with a potential public debut later this year.

SoftBank has been moving aggressively across nearly every layer of the AI stack. In 2016, the company acquired British chip designer Arm, which later returned to public markets through a Nasdaq listing in 2023. Earlier this year, SoftBank acquired the silicon design company Ampere Computing as it continued to build out its semiconductor portfolio.

The company’s ambitions stretch far beyond chips alone. The Financial Times reported in April that SoftBank is preparing a standalone AI and robotics company for a U.S. listing as early as this year. Bloomberg separately reported Monday that SoftBank is discussing a major AI data center project in France.

Son previously described Graphcore as “a company with deep expertise in chip design, which further builds on Arm’s leadership in semiconductor IP.”

Graphcore, meanwhile, has continued to hire and expand despite its earlier setbacks. In October, the company announced plans to invest up to £1 billion into a new AI campus in Bengaluru, India, with hiring focused on AI, silicon, software, and systems engineering roles.

The broader message behind SoftBank’s latest investment is becoming harder to ignore. The battle for AI dominance is no longer just about chatbots and models. Control over chips, compute, infrastructure, and energy is becoming the real prize.

SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son