SoftBank may elevate Arm CEO Rene Haas in AI strategy shift

Rene Haas is set to oversee much of SoftBank Group’s international business while remaining chief executive of Arm, according to the Financial Times, citing people familiar with the matter.

The move would give Haas a far broader operating brief as founder Masayoshi Son accelerates the Japanese group’s push into artificial intelligence and advanced chips.

Haas may receive an updated title at SoftBank Group International, the report said.

He is not expected to oversee the investment vehicles run by the Vision Fund or SoftBank’s energy business, leaving some of the group’s biggest capital pools outside his remit.

Even so, the appointment would rank among the most significant senior hires made by SoftBank from outside the organisation and could place Haas among Son’s closest operating deputies.

Broader international brief

The expanded role would underline Arm’s importance inside SoftBank at a time when Son is trying to reposition the group around AI infrastructure.

Arm, the British chip designer that SoftBank controls, sits at the centre of that strategy because its technology is already widely used across smartphones, cloud computing and increasingly data-centre applications.

Keeping Haas in charge of Arm while adding oversight of international operations would also suggest SoftBank wants tighter alignment between its most valuable chip asset and its wider overseas ambitions.

For Son, who has returned to aggressive dealmaking after a bruising period for the Vision Fund, speed and coordination appear to be taking priority.

Project Izanagi gains pace

The changes come as SoftBank presses ahead with Project Izanagi, its internal effort to develop AI-capable chips for smartphones and data centres.

The Financial Times has previously reported that Yusaku Yamamoto, who leads SoftBank’s automated trading arm, was put in charge of that initiative, highlighting the urgency with which Son is pursuing the project.

That urgency reflects a broader shift in strategy.

After the Vision Fund moved from delivering outsized gains to posting steep losses, Son has increasingly framed AI as SoftBank’s next defining opportunity.

Building or backing chips tailored for AI workloads would give the company more direct exposure to one of the fastest-growing parts of the technology market.

What the role will not cover

Haas’s prospective remit is expected to stop short of overseeing the Vision Fund and the energy unit, according to the report.

That distinction matters because it keeps SoftBank’s investment operations separate from the more strategic and operational responsibilities Haas is likely to assume.

Even with those carve-outs, the role would still make Haas a central figure in SoftBank’s global structure.

He would effectively help connect the group’s overseas businesses with its broader AI agenda, at a moment when Son is trying to build scale across several layers of the AI value chain.

Arm’s own AI ambitions

Arm has already signalled a bigger role for itself in AI hardware.

Last month, the company unveiled an AI-specific chip for data centres developed with Graphcore, saying the project could eventually add billions to revenue.

Arm shares rose more than 10% following that announcement, reflecting investor optimism that the company can capture more value from the AI build-out.

SoftBank has also been linked to a planned $30 billion investment in OpenAI through Vision Fund 2, according to media reports.

Taken together, the reported Haas appointment, Project Izanagi and the OpenAI exposure all point to the same goal: giving SoftBank a stronger position in the technologies that underpin the next phase of AI growth.

SoftBank and Arm have not publicly commented on the reported management changes.

If the move goes ahead, Haas’s influence would extend well beyond Arm, placing him at the heart of Son’s effort to reshape SoftBank around AI.