SoftBank Group Corp. founder and chief executive Masayoshi Son has opened preliminary discussions with sovereign wealth funds across the Persian Gulf, including prominent institutional entities in the United Arab Emirates, to raise as much as $100 billion for an unprecedented artificial intelligence investment vehicle, according to sources familiar with the matter. The proposed mega-fund would target controlling acquisitions of operational businesses across global industries with the strategic objective of overhauling their enterprise workflows through advanced artificial intelligence models and automation. SoftBank's dedicated robotics and embodied AI unit, Roze, is anticipated to serve as an operational backbone for the initiative, marking a decisive pivot toward deploying applied machine intelligence directly inside commercial enterprises.

The audacious fundraising drive evokes the scale of the original $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund launched in 2017, which received cornerstone capital from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Abu Dhabi's Mubadala. However, Son's latest campaign unfolds against a significantly more cautious capital climate and a balance sheet already leveraged to the AI ecosystem, where SoftBank has committed approximately $65 billion to ChatGPT developer OpenAI alongside an $11.1 billion high-yield bond sale closed in September. In response to reports of the $100 billion target, SoftBank shares fell as much as 7.3% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, reflecting investor unease regarding mounting corporate debt and potential delays in OpenAI's public market debut.

If completed, the massive vehicle would reinforce the Gulf states as the central financial pillar of the global AI boom, with Abu Dhabi-backed vehicles such as MGX and G42 actively redeploying energy revenues to establish global technology leadership. Nonetheless, market analysts caution that securing capital at this scale will face strict underwriting discipline as global interest rates stay elevated and institutional investors demand proven revenue models rather than speculative momentum. Over the coming quarters, financial markets will closely monitor whether preliminary Gulf negotiations crystallize into binding capital commitments, a development that could ignite an unprecedented wave of AI-driven corporate acquisitions worldwide.