SoftBank invests another $457 million! Graphcore receives heavy backing from Masayoshi Son, aiming for Artificial General Intelligence.

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SoftBank Group is accelerating its layout of AI hardware infrastructure, with its UK chip company Graphcore recently receiving a new round of significant funding.

According to CNBC, filings submitted by Graphcore to the UK Companies Registry on April 10 show that the company issued an additional $457 million worth of shares. A Graphcore spokesperson confirmed that the funds came from SoftBank. According to insiders, this round of funding is only "a part" of what SoftBank plans to allocate to Graphcore this year, with larger-scale funding to follow.

This injection further strengthens SoftBank's strategic layout in the global AI infrastructure sector. In recent years, SoftBank has invested tens of billions of dollars in the AI field. Continuing to support Graphcore is regarded as a key move for SoftBank to build its own AI chip capabilities, aiming at general artificial intelligence.

Graphcore: From Unicorn Troubles to the Embrace of SoftBank

Graphcore is a UK-based AI chip and systems R&D company, previously seen as a potential challenger to Nvidia. Despite raising hundreds of millions of dollars, the company has never achieved large-scale commercial deployment.

In 2024, SoftBank completed its acquisition of Graphcore. At that time, SoftBank stated that Graphcore would collaborate with the group to promote the research of general artificial intelligence (AGI), aiming for the goal of AI reaching or surpassing human-level capabilities. SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son commented that Graphcore "has deep professional expertise in chip design, which will further consolidate Arm's leadership position in semiconductor IP."

With financial support from SoftBank, Graphcore's business expansion has significantly accelerated. In October 2025, the company announced that it would invest up to £1 billion in Bangalore, India, to build a new AI campus. At the same time, Graphcore is undertaking large-scale recruitment in AI, chip, software, and systems engineering.

This injection of over $450 million, along with more funding still to come, will provide crucial support for Graphcore's technology development and capacity expansion. This UK chip company, which was once in trouble, is now using this opportunity to regain its place in the global AI arms race.

SoftBank's AI Chip Strategic Map

Graphcore is not SoftBank's only layout in the semiconductor field.

As early as 2016, SoftBank acquired a majority stake in Arm, which went public on Nasdaq in 2023 and remains one of the world's most important chip architecture licensors. In 2025, SoftBank made another move, acquiring chip design company Ampere Computing, further strengthening its chip industry chain layout.

On the broader AI infrastructure front, SoftBank is involved in the "Stargate" project jointly initiated with OpenAI and Oracle, with a committed investment of up to $500 billion. According to Bloomberg, SoftBank is also in talks to build a large AI data center project in France.

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