AI Daily: SoftBank Group to acquire DigitalBridge in $4B deal

Catch up on the top artificial intelligence news and commentary by Wall Street analysts on publicly traded companies in the space with this daily recap compiled by The Fly:

ACQUISITION: SoftBank Group (SFTBY) announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire DigitalBridge (DBRG) for a total enterprise value of approximately $4B. Under the terms of the agreement, SoftBank Group will indirectly acquire all the outstanding common stock of DigitalBridge for $16.00 per share in cash. The transaction has been unanimously recommended by a special committee of DigitalBridge’s board of directors comprised solely of independent directors. Following the recommendation of the special committee, DigitalBridge’s board of directors unanimously approved the transaction. The transaction represents a premium of 15% to DigitalBridge’s closing share price on December 26 and 50% to the unaffected 52-week average closing price as of December 4. After the closing of the transaction, DigitalBridge will continue to operate as a separately managed platform, led by Marc Ganzi. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of regulatory approvals, and is expected to close in the second half of 2026.

GROQ DEAL: Stifel keeps a Buy rating on Nvidia (NVDA) with a $250 price target after Groq announced that it has entered into a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Nvidia for its inference technology. While Nvidia did not publicly comment, various reports have cited a $20B strategic transaction value for the licensing agreement and talent acquisition, the firm tells investors in a research note. Stifel believes Groq’s second generation language processing unit will be based on a Samsung 4nm process, which could ramp in conjunction with Nvidia’s Vera Rubin rack systems. Integrating the system with Rubin CPX could further stretch Nvidia’s artificial intelligence infrastructure leadership as inference workloads continue to evolve, contends the firm.

Citi analyst Atif Malik also views Nvidia’s licensing deal with Groq as a “clear positive.” The company is addressing competition from other inference architectures with a licensing deal that is more adequate than a full acquisition, the analyst tells investors in a research note. Citi believes Nvidia has worked around regulatory scrutiny given that Groq will still run as an independent company. It keeps a Buy rating on Nvidia with a $270 price target.

Meanwhile, Truist said it believes Nvidia’s licensing agreement with Groq is intended to “fortify” its competitive positioning in inference versus tensor processing units. While the reported $20B cost is significant, it is small relative to Nvidia’s cash position and cash flow generation, the firm tells investors in a research note. Truist says Nvidia’s development of Groq’s technology could make its capabilities more appealing to high volume inference customers. The firm keeps a Buy rating on the shares with a $275 price target.

AI-POWERED DIGITAL ASSISTANT TOOLS: 3M (MMM) announced two new digital products, namely Ask 3M, a new AI-powered digital assistant that helps customers find solutions to design challenges using 3M’s portfolio of adhesives and tapes, and an expanded 3M Digital Materials Hub, which enables direct collaboration with 3M scientists through the Workbench feature and powers virtual materials sampling for generative solutions that don’t yet exist. The company said that both tools leverage generative AI, advanced modeling, and simulation-ready data cards. “At 3M, we’re combining decades of material science with AI so engineers can make better decisions, faster,” said Holly Semerad, Chief Marketing Officer for 3M’s Safety & Industrial Business Group. Leveraging Amazon Web Services’ (AMZN) AI capabilities, including Amazon Bedrock and AgentCore, Ask 3M and the 3M Digital Materials Hub demonstrate how agentic AI and advanced simulation can help 3M customers accelerate innovation cycles, reduce prototyping costs, and bring better products to market faster, 3M said.