Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
The son of Masayoshi, chairman and chief executive director of Softbank Group Corp., speaks at the SoftBank World event in Tokyo, Japan, Wednesday, July 16, 2025.
Kiyoshi OTA | Bloomberg | Gets the image
Masoyosy’s son makes his biggest bet: that his brainchild Soft banks will become the center of the revolution caused by artificial intelligence.
The son says that the artificial warden (ASI) – AI, who is 10,000 times smarter than people – will be here in 10 years. It’s a bold call – but maybe not surprising. He made a career of great plays; In particular, one was an investment of $ 20 million in a Chinese e -commerce company Alibaba In 2000, it made billions for SoftBank.
Now the billionaire hopes to repeat this success in a number of investments and acquisitions in AI firms that will put SoftBank at the main technological shift center.
While the son was open about his vision for the last year, his thinking precedes most of his recent bullishness, according to two former executives in SoftBank.
“I live vividly as he first invited me home for dinner and sat on the porch over a glass of wine, he started talking to me about the strangeness – about what machine intelligence overtook human intelligence,” said Alok, former finance chief at the 2016 SoftBank.
Big AI Plays Softbank
For the son of AI it seems personal.
“Softbank was founded for what purpose?
This can go somehow to explain what has been aggressive over the past few years – but especially the last two – put SoftBank at the AI history center.
In 2016, SoftBank purchased Chip Designer ARM The agreement worth about $ 32 billion at the time. Today, Arm It is estimated at more than $ 145 billion. While ARM drawings are the basis of design for almost all smartphones in the world, these days the company is looking for Press yourself as a key player in AI infrastructure. Chips based on the hand are part Nvidia ‘S systems that are included in the data center.
In March SoftBank also announced plans to purchase another chips, Ampere computing, for $ 6.5 billion.
Maker Chatgpt Openai is another investment for SoftBank, and the Japanese giant recently stated that the planned investment in the company to reach about 4.8 trillion Japanese yen ($ 32.7 billion).
Softbank also invested in a number of other AI -related companies.
“AI SoftBank strategy is comprehensive, covering the entire AI stack from the main semiconductors, software, infrastructure and robotics to advanced cloud services and completion of applications for critical verticals such as enterprises, education, health and autonomous systems, Nile Shah, Consistencus in CNBC.
“The vision of Mr.’s son is to unite and deeply integrate these components, thus setting the powerful AI ecosystem designed to maximize the long -term cost for our shareholders.”
Softbank stock performance since 2017, which founded its first vision fund.
There is a common topic behind the SoftBank investment in AI, which comes directly from Son, namely: these firms must use advanced intelligence to be more competitive, successful to make their product the best and their customers happy, said the CNBC man. They could only anonymously comment on the sensitivity of this issue.
It started with computers and brain robots
Because SoftBank launched “The next 30-year SoftBank Vision” in 2010, the son told about “brain computers” during the presentation. He described these computers as systems that could eventually learn and program himself.
And then the robots came. Main technicians such as Nvidia Jensen Huang and Tesla boss Elon Musk Now they are talking about robotics as a key application II – but the son thought About this more than ten years ago.
In 2012, SoftBank took most shares in a French company called AldeBaran. Two years later, both companies launched a humanoid robot called Pepper which they with the account As “the world’s first personal robot that can read emotions.”
Later, son – Note: “In 30 years I hope that robots will become one of the main businesses in profit for SoftBank Group.”
The SoftBank Bet on Pepper is eventually allowed into the company. Soft banks cut Work in its robotics unit has ceased to produce peppers in 2020. In 2022, the German firm United Robotics Group agreed to purchase AldeBaran from Softbank.
But the very early interest of the son in the robots emphasized his curiosity about the application of AI in the future.
“He was very early, and he thought about it obsessively,” he was the author of “The Money Tap”, “he said.
In the background, the son prepared something more: a technological fund that would make waves in the world of investing. He founded the Vision Fund in 2017 With a massive $ 100 billion in the deployment capital.
Softbank aggressively stacked in a company worldwide with some of the biggest travel rates as they’re Uber and Chinese firm Didi.
But investments in Chinese technology companies and some Bad bets on firms such as WEWORK Feelings of vision for vision when it gathered billions of dollars losses By 2023.
Vision but a bad time
The market questioned some son investment in companies such as Uber and Didi, which at the time burned cash and had an incomprehensible economy.
But even these investments gave a look at AI Son, according to a former partner at the SoftBank Vision Fund.
“His opinion then became the first appearance of AI to the cars moving to independent control,” the CNBC source said.
Again, this can be seen as a case of being too early. Uber created a car without drivers to only sell it. Instead, the company focused on other self -managed car companies to bring them to the Uber platform. Even now, cars without drivers are not widespread on the roads, although commercial services such as Waymo are available.
Softbank is still investing in automotive companies without drivers, such as British launch.
The terms were clearly not on the side of the son. Following record losses in Vision’s Fund in 2022. The son announced SoftBank Passed into the “defense” modesignificantly reducing investment and more prudent. It was at this time that the companies like Openai started getting Steam, but before the Chatgpt launch, which put the company on the card.
“If these companies approached the head in 2021, 2022, the mass would be in perfect place, but it used all its ammunition in other companies,” said the former Vision Fund Exec.
“When they reached the age of 21, 22, the Vision Foundation has invested in five hundred different companies, and it is unable to invest in the II, and it missed it.”
The son himself said this year that SoftBank wanted to invest in Openai back in 2019, but it was Microsoft This as a result became a key investor. Fast forward to 2025, the Vision Foundation – from which two – has a portfolio, compiled by full companies oriented on II.
But this period was difficult for investors in the direction. The Covid-19 pandemic pandemic, flowering inflation and growth rates have hit state and private markets across the board after many years of free monetary policy and technological mileage.
Softbank did not see at this time as a missed opportunity to invest in the II, said a man familiar with the company.
Instead, the company believes that it is still early in the AI investment cycle, the source added.
Risk and reward
AI technology moves fast, from chips running software to models underlying popular applications.
Technology giants in the US and China are fighting this to produce permanent AI models in order to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI) with different definitions, depending on who you are talking to, but overall are the II, which is smarter than a person. If billions of dollars that enter the technology, the risk is high and the rewards can be even higher.
But breakdowns cannot get out of this.
This year’s Chinese firm Deepseek made waves after the release of the so -called reasoning model which, which seemed to be designed cheaper than American competitors. The fact that the Chinese company was running the exploits, despite all export restrictions for advanced technology, rocked the world’s financial markets This was a bet on the fact that the US had unavailable AI.
While the markets have since been restored, the potential of unexpected achievements in technology at this early stage in the II remains a great risk for such SoftBank.
“Like most investments in technology, the main problem is the investment in the winners technology. Many of the investment that SoftBank, which has invested in the current leaders, but AI is still in a relative ruling state, so other applicants could still go out of nowhere,” said Dan Baker, a senior analyst at Morningstar.
However, the son made it clear what wants to install SoftBank of DNA that will see her survive and thrive For 300 yearsAccording to the company site.
This can go somehow to explain the great risks taken by the son, and his conviction when it comes to certain topics and companies – and the assessment he is willing to pay.
“He (his son) made some mistakes, but directed to the same dramaturgy that is – he wants to be sure that he is a real player in the II and he does it,” said the former Vision Executive Fund.
