Masayoshi, chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group, spoke at a SoftBank World event in Tokyo, Japan on Wednesday, July 16, 2025.
Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Masayoshi’s son’s biggest bet to date: his creativity Soft Silver Will be the center of the revolution driven by artificial intelligence.
The son said artificial superintelligence (ASI) (10,000 times smarter than humans) would be here in 10 years. It’s a bold call – but maybe not surprising. His career came through big dramas. It is worth noting that one is a US$20 million investment in Chinese e-commerce companies Alibaba In 2000, this had created billions of dollars for SoftBank.
Now, billionaires hope to replicate success through a series of investments and acquisitions in AI companies, which will make SoftBank the center of a fundamental technological transformation.
Although his son has been outspoken for the past year, his ideas have been ahead of most of his recent bullishness, according to two former Softbank executives.
“I vividly remember the first time he invited me home for supper, sitting on the porch on a glass of wine, he began talking to me about singularity – machine intelligence exceeds human intelligence.”
SoftBank’s Large-scale Artificial Intelligence Drama
To his son, AI seems to be personal.
“What purpose was SoftBank built for? What was Masa’s son born? It sounds strange, but I think I was born with ASI.”
SoftBank has been placed at the center of the AI story over the past few years, especially the last two.
In 2016, SoftBank acquired the chip designer arm The deal was worth about $32 billion at the time. today, arm Valued at over $145 billion. While the arm blueprint forms the basis for the design of nearly all smartphones in the world, the company is seeking Position yourself as a key player in AI infrastructure. The arm-based chip is nvidia’Enter the system in the data center.
In March, SoftBank also announced plans to acquire another chip designer Ampere calculation, $6.5 billion.
Chatgpt Maker Openai is another commodity investment from SoftBank, the Japanese giant recently said the company plans to invest about ¥4.8 trillion ($32.7 billion).
SoftBank also invests in many other companies related to AI.
“SoftBank’s AI strategy is comprehensive, covering the entire AI stack from basic semiconductors, software, infrastructure and robotics to cutting-edge cloud services and end-use applications in key verticals such as enterprise, education, health and autonomous systems such as Counterpoint Research, Neil Shah, “Neil Shah,” Counterpoint Research, Cnbc.
“The son’s vision is to cohese and integrate these components deeply to build a strong AI ecosystem designed to maximize the long-term value of shareholders.”
SoftBank’s stock performance since 2017, the year when the first Vision Fund was founded.
People familiar with the company told CNBC that Soft Bank’s investment in AI companies is a common theme behind the people who come directly from their sons AI companies – i.e., these companies should use advanced intelligence to be more competitive, successful, to make their products better and customers happy. Due to the sensitivity of the matter, they can only comment anonymously.
It starts with brain computers and robots
When SoftBank launched the “SoftBank’s Next 30 Years Vision” in 2010, his son talked about “brain computers”. He describes these computers as systems that can eventually be learned and programmed.
Then there is the robot. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Tesla boss Elon Musk Now talking about robotics as a key application of AI – but my son is thinking About ten years ago.
In 2012, SoftBank owned a majority stake in a French company called Aldebaran. Two years later, the two companies launched a humanoid robot called Pepper, and they Billing Being “the world’s first personal robot to read emotions”.
Later, the son explain: “In 30 years, I hope robots will become one of the core businesses that generate profits for SoftBank Group.”
SoftBank’s bet on Pepper ended up failing for the company. Soft Silver Cut Working in its robotics department and stopping production of pepper in 2020. In 2022, German company United Robotics Group agreed to acquire Aldebaran from SoftBank.
But his son’s interest in robots has long emphasized his curiosity for future AI applications.
“He thought about this very early and early,” he is Sama, the author of The Money Trap.
In the background, the son is cooking something bigger: a technology fund that will make a stir in the investment world. He founded the Vision Fund in 2017 Deployable capital has a huge capital of $100 billion.
SoftBank is actively investing in companies around the world, with some of the largest cyclists bets like Uber and Chinese company Didi.
But investment in Chinese technology companies and some Bad bets for companies like WeWork The sour taste of the visual fund Billions of dollars in losses By 2023.
Visual but bad timing
The market questioned some of his son’s investments in companies like Uber and Didi, which were burning through cash at the time and had unclear unit economics.
But even these investments talk to their son’s AI perspective, according to a former partner at SoftBank Vision Fund.
“The idea at the time was that the first appearance of AI was an autonomous vehicle,” the source told CNBC.
Again, this can be seen as a premature situation. Uber created a driverless car unit just for sale. Instead, the company focused on other self-driving car companies, bringing them to the Uber platform. Even now, driverless cars are not common on the road despite commercial services like Waymo.
SoftBank still invests in driverless car companies, e.g. UK startups.
The timing was obviously not with my son. After Vision Fund Loss in 2022, Son Announces SoftBank Will enter “Defense” modegreatly reduce investment and be more cautious. It is at this time that companies like Openai are starting to flourish, but before chatgpt is launched, it will put companies on the map.
“When these companies arrived in 2021, 2022, Masa would have been in a perfect position, but he has used all the ammunition on other companies,” the former Vision Fund executive said.
“When they were adults at the age of 21 or 22, the Visual Fund had already invested in five to six hundred different companies, and he couldn’t invest in AI, and he missed that.”
My son himself said this year that SoftBank hopes to invest in Openai as early as 2019, but this is Microsoft Ultimately become a key investor. Fast forward to 2025, and the portfolio of Visual Funds (now two) is full of AI-centric companies.
But for all-round investors, this period is difficult. After years of monetary policy and technology bull run, the common 19th pandemic, booming inflation and interest rate rises have hit the public and private markets in an all-round way.
One person familiar with the company said SoftBank did not view this time as a missed opportunity to invest in AI.
The company believes that the company is still early in the AI investment cycle, the source added.
Risk and Reward
AI technology is moving rapidly, from chips running software to models that support popular applications.
The tech giants in the United States and China are fighting it to produce constantly appealing AI models with the goal of reaching artificial general intelligence (AGI), a term defined by whom you speak to, but broadly refers to smarter AI with humans. With billions of dollars investing in the technology, the risks are high and the rewards are even higher.
But the interrupt may not occur.
This year, Chinese company DeepSeek caused waves after releasing a so-called inference model Seems cheaper than U.S. competitors. Despite all the export restrictions on advanced technology, Chinese companies have managed the fact that this feat is, Swinging global financial markets Bet on the US’s AI lead.
Despite the recovery of the market, the potential for technological advancement in the early stages of AI is still a huge risk for SoftBank and others.
“As with most technology investments, the main challenge is investing in winning technologies. SoftBank has made many investments, which is the current leader, but AI is still in relative infancy, so other challengers can still look up from nowhere,” Dan Baker, senior equity analyst at MorningStar, told CNBC.
Despite this, the son made it clear that he wanted to set up Soft Silver with DNA Survival and Prosperous 300 yearsaccording to the company’s website.
This could be some way to explain the significant risks the son takes, as well as his belief in specific topics and companies and the valuations he is willing to pay.
“He (son) made some mistakes, but in the direction, he was on the same effort, and that was – he wanted to make sure he was a real player in AI and he was achieving that.”
