SoftBank Group Corp President and Chief Executive Officer Masyoshi son, on Wednesday, July 16, 2025, speaks at the SoftBank World Event in Tokyo, Japan.
Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty images
Masayoshi son is still making his biggest bet: his brain yield Softbank The center of a revolution run by artificial intelligence will be.
The son says that Artificial Superintendent (ASI) – AI which is 10,000 times more smarter than humans – will be here in 10 years. This is a bold call – but perhaps it’s not surprising. He has made his career with big plays; In particular, a Chinese e-commerce company had an investment of $ 20 million Alibaba In 2000, which earned billions for Softbank.
Now, billionaire AI firms are hoping to repeat the success with a series of investment and acquisition that will put Softbank to the center of a fundamental technical change.
While the son has been vocal about his vision compared to the previous year, his thinking according to two former SoftBank officials, did a lot before his recent rapidly.
Former Finance Head of SoftBank, till 2016 and till 2019, President Alok Sama said, “I remember for the first time that when he had invited me to his house for dinner and was sitting on his porch above a glass of wine, he started talking to me about the uniqueness – the point at which the machine intelligence moves forward from human intelligence, by 2016, a former finance by 2016 is a pre -finance and the president’s allok by 2016. Sama told CNBC.
Softbank’s big AI plays
For son, AI seems to be personal.
“For what purpose the SoftBank was established? For what purpose Masa son was born? It may seem strange, but I think I was born to feel ASI,” the son said last year.
It can go to explain somehow to explain what an aggressive drive is in the last few years – but especially the last two – to insert the softbank at the center of the AI story.
In 2016, SoftBank acquired Chip Designer Arm At that time in a deal of about 32 billion dollars. Today, Hand The value of more than $ 145 billion. While arm blueprints form the basis of designs for almost all world smartphones, these days, the company is watching Status himself as a prominent player in AI InfrastructureArm is part of chips Nvidia ‘S systems that go to data centers.
In March, Softbank also announced a plan to get another chip designer, Empier computing for $ 6.5 billion,
Chatgpt maker Openai is another marry investment for Softbank, recently Japanese veteran has said that the planned investment in the company will reach around 4.8 trillion Japanese Yen ($ 32.7 billion).
Softbank has also invested in its portfolio in several other companies related to AI.
“Softbank’s AI strategy is widespread, the entire AI stack is spreading the entire AI Stack to Foundational Semiconductor, Software, Infrastructure, and Robotics to state-of-the-art cloud services and stretching until the end applications in important verticals such as the state-of-the-art cloud services and enterprise, education, health and autonomous systems,” Nil Shah, “Neel Shah, explained in the counter research research research, the concerts research in the counter research research,”
“The vision of Shri son is to connect these components in a harmonious way and integrate deeply, with a powerful AI ecosystem designed to maximize the long -term value for our shareholders.”
Softbank’s stock performance since 2017, the year of the year where the first vision fund was installed.
AI companies are a common topic behind the investment of softbank that comes directly from the son – that is, these firms should use advanced intelligence to be more competitive, to succeed, to improve their product and to please their customers, a person familiar with the company told CNBC. They could only comment anonymously due to the sensitivity of the case.
Its starts and brain started with computer and robot
As SoftBank launched the next 30-year vision of Softbank in 2010, Son talked about “brain computer” during a presentation. He described these computers as systems that could eventually learn and program themselves.
And then came the robot. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and major technical data like Tesla Owner Elon Musk Now talking about robotics as a major application of AI – but the son was thinking About it more than a decade ago.
In 2012, Softbank took a majority stake in a French company called Aldebaran. Two years later, both companies launched a humanoid robot called Black Pepper, which they Bill “The world’s first individual robot that can read emotions.”
Later, son Said: “In 30 years, I hope that robots will become one of the main occupations in creating profits for the softbank group.”
Softbank’s stake on pepper eventually flopped for the company. Softbank Decreased Stop production of jobs in its robotics unit and black pepper in 2020. In 2022, the German firm United Robotics Group agreed to acquire Aldebaran from SoftBank.
But the son’s very early interest in the robot underlined his curiosity for future AI applications.
“He was very early and he had long been thinking about this,” said “Sama, who is the author of” The Money Trap “.
In the background, the son was cooking something big: a technical fund that would make waves in the investment world. He founded the vision fund in 2017 In deployable capital, with a large scale $ 100 billion.
SoftBank invested aggressively in companies worldwide, such as some of the biggest bets on ride players Uber And Chinese firm Didi.
But investment in Chinese technology companies and some Bad bets on firms like wearork This rack as a source intelligence for vision fund Loss of billions of dollars By 2023.
Vision but bad time
The market questioned some of the son’s investments in companies like Uber and Didi, which were burning through cash at that time and an ambiguous unit economics.
But those investments also spoke to the son’s AI scene, according to the former partner in the SoftBank Vision Fund.
The source told CNBC, “His idea was then AI’s first arrival, which was self-driving cars.”
Again it can be seen as a case of getting very quick. Uber created only one driverless car unit to sell it. Instead, the company has focused on other self-driving car companies to bring them to the Uber platform. Still, driverless cars are not widespread on the roads, although business services such as Wemo are available.
Softbank still invests in driverless car companies, such as British Startup Wave,
The time was clearly not towards the son. After a record deficit in Vision Fund in 2022, Son declared a softbank Will go to “Defense” modeTo reduce investment and be more prudent. It was at this time that companies like Openai had started gaining steam, but would still put the company on the map before the launch of Chatgpt.
The execution of the former vision fund said, “When those companies were prominent in 2021, 2022, Masa must have been in an ideal place, but they used all their ammunition on other companies.”
“When he came to age in 21, 22, the Vision Fund invested five or six hundred different companies and was not in a position to invest in AI and he missed.”
The son himself said this year that SoftBank wanted to invest in Openi in early 2019, but it was Microsoft It became a major investor. Rapid forward to 2025, vision funds – of which now have two – a portfolio filled with AI -centric companies.
But this period was difficult for investors across the board. Covid-19 epidemic, rising inflation and rising rates killed public and private markets in the board after a loose monetary policy and years after a tech bull run.
Softbank did not see that time as an opportunity to invest in AI, a person acquainted with the company said.
Instead, the company thinks that it is still very early in the AI investment cycle, the source said.
Risk and reward
AI technology is running fast, from chips that run software for models that outline popular applications.
Tech giants in the US and China are excluding the AI model with the aim of reaching Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)-a word with different definitions based on which you speak on, but a word that refers to AI roughly that is smarter than humans. Billions of dollars investing in technology, the risk is high, and may be even higher.
But where the disintegration can come out.
This year, Chinese firm Dipsek created waves after releasing a so -called argument model Appeared to develop more cheaply than its American rivalsThe fact is that a Chinese company provided, despite all the export restrictions of advanced technology in the place, Global financial market He was betting that AI was a unavailable AI lead in the US.
While the markets have been cured since then, AI has a big risk for the choice of SoftBank, the possibility of surprise in technology at such an early stage.
“With most technology investments, significant challenge is to invest in winning technologies. Softbank is among the existing leaders in many investments made, but AIs are still in their relative infancy, who can still lag behind the other challenges,” Morningstar’s senior equity analysts told the CNBC.
Nevertheless, the son has made it clear that he wants to set a softbank with DNA that will see it To live and thrive For 300 yearsAccording to the company’s website.
It can go in some way to explain a big risk that the son takes, and when it comes to particular subjects and companies, his firm belief – and the evaluation that he is ready to pay.
The execution of the former vision fund said, “He (son) made some mistakes, but directly he is going into the same drink, which – he wants to ensure that he is a real player in AI and he is doing so.”
