Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Shutterstock For years, Japanese investment group SoftBank has been all-in on the AI gold rush. In early 2025, mere weeks into his second term as president, Donald Trump announced a $500 billion AI infrastructure project, dubbed Stargate, as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son proudly watched on inside the Oval Office. Over the proceeding year and a half, snowballing AI hype has sent