SoftBank Group and SoftBank Corp. said on July 2 they will form SB Neo Inc. to rent AI chips and cloud computing to US companies from the next fiscal year.

SoftBank Corp., the Japanese telecom operator, will own 51% of the venture, while parent SoftBank Group will own 49%.

SoftBank Corp. president and CEO Junichi Miyakawa said SB Neo aims to supply about 10 gigawatts of data center capacity by around 2030 for AI training and inference.

That would exceed the current contracted power of neocloud rivals CoreWeave and Nebius, which each have 3.5 gigawatts and are targeting more than 5 gigawatts by 2030.

SoftBank has not disclosed which chip suppliers SB Neo will use in the US.

Miyakawa said the neocloud business will launch first in Texas, where the company will build a multigigawatt data center.

Separately, SoftBank-related entities have been linked to other US AI infrastructure plans, including an SB Energy project for OpenAI in Milam County, Texas.

SoftBank said its Infrinia software helps clients manage graphics processing unit (GPU) leasing.

Miyakawa said SB Neo would seek to limit financial risk by partnering with SoftBank Group and other companies to build data centers.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg

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