SoftBank Group is preparing to spin out a new AI and robotics company called Roze and pursue a US initial public offering at a valuation of around $100 billion, in what would be one of the largest AI listings ever attempted. According to reports surfaced this week, founder and chief executive Masayoshi Son is driving the effort, with some executives pushing for a debut as early as the second half of 2026.
The move marks a sharp escalation in SoftBank's bet on the physical infrastructure layer of AI — moving the firm from a backer of software companies into an operator of the buildings, robots, and energy assets the industry runs on.
What Roze Will Actually Do
The company is being designed around a single thesis: data center construction is the bottleneck for AI, and autonomous robots can break it. Roze is reportedly built to deploy robots that automate large parts of US data center construction — accelerating timelines for AI facility buildout and reducing reliance on scarce skilled construction labor.
To seed the entity, SoftBank intends to bundle existing assets from across its portfolio, including energy resources, landholdings, and infrastructure projects, along with ABB Robotics — the global automation specialist SoftBank agreed to acquire last year. ABB's industrial robotics expertise is expected to be the operational backbone of Roze's robot fleet.
Why Son Wants This Public Soon
SoftBank's appetite for AI bets has run well ahead of its balance sheet. The firm has committed more than $30 billion tied to its OpenAI investment alone, on top of significant exposure across chip, robotics, and infrastructure plays. A standalone Roze listing would unlock fresh capital, separate the robotics-and-real-asset story from Vision Fund volatility, and give Son a vehicle priced specifically against the AI infrastructure thesis rather than SoftBank's mixed conglomerate discount.
The $100 billion target also fits the broader pattern of 2026 AI valuations. With Anthropic reportedly weighing a round near $900 billion and US hyperscalers projecting roughly $725 billion of combined 2026 capex, investors have shown a clear willingness to price physical-AI vehicles aggressively when they sit close to the data center buildout.
Skepticism Inside the Tent
Not everyone at SoftBank is sold. The Financial Times reported that some inside the company have expressed skepticism about both the valuation and the proposed timeline, given Roze is essentially a pre-revenue thesis stitched together from existing assets and a robotics acquisition that has yet to fully integrate. Pulling off a 2026 listing would require demonstrating that the robot-built data center concept is more than a pitch deck — and that ABB's industrial automation can be redirected meaningfully into US construction sites.
Implications
If Roze hits the public markets at anything close to the rumored mark, it would validate a category that competitors like Bezos's Project Prometheus and several humanoid robotics startups have been quietly building toward: physical AI as a listed asset class, separate from the model labs. It would also hand SoftBank a public currency at exactly the moment its OpenAI commitments come due, turning Son's infrastructure thesis from a private bet into a market-priced one.
