SoftBank Is Building an AI Robotics Company Called Roze — and Already Targeting a $100B IPO

Masayoshi Son has spent the better part of the last two years trying to persuade the world that physical AI — the convergence of software intelligence with robotic hardware — is the next trillion-dollar frontier. His latest move makes that conviction concrete: SoftBank is creating a new standalone company called Roze that will deploy autonomous robotics to build and operate AI data centers, and executives are already targeting a U.S. IPO valuing the company at approximately $100 billion as early as the second half of 2026.

The report, first published by the Financial Times and confirmed by multiple sources familiar with the matter, signals that Son intends to turn SoftBank’s sprawling AI investment portfolio into a publicly traded operating business — one that competes directly in the infrastructure layer of the AI economy rather than simply betting on it from the outside.

What Roze Will Do

The core business model is deceptively simple in concept and staggeringly complex in execution: use robots to build data centers cheaper and faster than human-staffed construction crews, then use AI to operate those facilities with minimal human intervention.

Data center construction has become one of the most capital-intensive bottlenecks in the AI buildout. The United States alone is projected to need hundreds of additional gigawatts of AI compute capacity over the next decade, and the construction industry is already struggling to hire, train, and retain enough workers to meet that demand. Roze’s pitch is that robotic automation can decouple the pace of AI infrastructure expansion from human labor constraints.

The company would bundle several existing SoftBank assets. The most significant is ABB Robotics — one of the world’s leading suppliers of industrial robots and machine automation systems — which SoftBank acquired from Swiss engineering conglomerate ABB Ltd. in a $5.4 billion deal announced in October 2025. That acquisition gave SoftBank a manufacturing-grade robotics capability; Roze would be the vehicle through which it is deployed at scale for AI infrastructure purposes.

In addition to ABB Robotics, Roze could incorporate energy assets, land holdings, and infrastructure resources currently scattered across SoftBank’s portfolio, creating a vertically integrated company that controls the real estate, power supply, construction capability, and operational management of next-generation AI data centers.

The $100 Billion Bet

A $100 billion valuation for a company that does not yet formally exist would place Roze among the largest IPOs in recent history — comparable to the scale of Saudi Aramco’s initial offering or the largest recent technology listings. Whether that number is achievable depends entirely on how public markets assess the intersection of AI infrastructure demand and robotics automation as a single business.

Son’s track record on ambitious valuations is mixed at best. The Vision Fund era of 2017-2020 produced spectacular write-downs alongside genuine winners, and some SoftBank insiders have expressed private skepticism about both the $100 billion figure and the aggressive IPO timeline. The second half of 2026 is a narrow window to assemble, structure, and list what would be an entirely new public entity built from disparate portfolio pieces.

Still, the macro backdrop is not obviously unfavorable. The global AI infrastructure investment cycle has accelerated beyond most forecasts: the Stargate initiative — the $500 billion joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and the U.S. government — has already committed billions toward data center construction in Ohio and Texas. SoftBank is already a cornerstone of that project, and Roze could function as the operational contractor that executes the physical construction at scale.

Strategic Logic in the AI Infrastructure Race

To understand why Son is pursuing this structure, it helps to trace the evolution of his thinking. The original Vision Fund thesis was that SoftBank could profit by holding equity in AI-era companies across the stack — semiconductors, cloud, e-commerce, autonomous vehicles. That approach produced uneven results because SoftBank remained a financial intermediary rather than an operator.

The Roze concept represents a shift toward operational control: rather than funding the companies that build AI infrastructure, SoftBank would become the company that builds AI infrastructure. This gives it direct exposure to the most durable revenue stream in the current AI economy — not the models, which face commoditization pressure, but the physical plants that run them, which are constrained by land, power, and construction capacity.

The robotics angle adds another dimension. If Roze can demonstrate that autonomous construction crews can build data centers significantly faster and cheaper than conventional approaches, it creates a proprietary capability that is difficult to replicate. ABB Robotics brings decades of industrial automation expertise, safety certification, and customer relationships in heavy manufacturing — the kind of foundation that typically takes a decade to build organically.

What to Watch

Several uncertainties remain. The company has not been formally incorporated, and SoftBank has not made an official announcement — the reports are based on internal plans and conversations with people familiar with the matter. Regulatory approvals, particularly around the bundling of energy and infrastructure assets, could add complexity and time to the IPO process.

The most significant question is customer acquisition: data center operators, hyperscalers, and enterprise buyers would need to trust Roze’s robotics systems with multi-billion dollar construction projects at a time when the technology is still being deployed at scale. Early contracts, likely with SoftBank’s own Stargate partners, will be essential to establishing the operational credibility that public market investors would demand.

Son has spent his career making bets that looked absurd until they didn’t. Roze may be his most audacious yet — a single company designed to sit at the exact intersection of the two most capital-intensive trends of the current decade: AI compute expansion and robotics industrialization. The market will have its say when the IPO roadshow begins.