Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group, speaks during the Future Investment Initiative Institute Priority Asia conference in Tokyo on Monday. SoftBank Group is in talks to acquire DigitalBridge Group, a private equity firm that invests in assets such as data centers, as it seeks to take advantage of an AI-driven boom in digital infrastructure, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The Japanese conglomerate is negotiating a potential deal to buy New York-listed DigitalBridge and take it private, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is confidential. Shares of DigitalBridge have fallen 13% this year, giving the company a market value of about $1.8 billion. They rose as high as 35% on the news and were last trading at $12.63 at 10:40 a.m. in New York. SoftBank's billionaire founder Masayoshi Son is trying to capitalize on soaring demand for the computing capacity that underpins artificial intelligence applications.