Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive of Softbank Group Corp., will speak at the Softbank World event held in Tokyo, Japan on Wednesday, July 16th, 2025.
Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Masayoshi’s son is making his biggest bet. His brainchild, SoftBank, will be the center of a revolution driven by artificial intelligence.
My son says that artificial super intelligence (ASI) – AI 10,000 times smarter than humans – will be here in 10 years. It’s a bold call, but perhaps not surprising. He has made a career from big theatre. In particular, one was a $20 million investment in a Chinese e-commerce company. Alibaba In 2000, it won billions for SoftBank.
Now, billionaires want to replicate their success with a series of investments and acquisitions in AI companies that put SoftBank at the heart of fundamental technological change.
According to two former SoftBank executives, his son was frank about his vision last year, but his thoughts preceded many of his recent bullishness.
“I remember vividly as he invited me to the house for dinner and sat on his porch on a glass of wine. He began to talk to me about singularity. Machine intelligence is the point that has surpassed human intelligence,” Alok Sama, former finance chief at SoftBank until 2016 and president until 2019, told CNBC.
SoftBank’s big AI plays
For my son, AI seems personal.
“What purpose was Softbank established? What purpose was Masa’s son born? That may sound strange, but I think he was born to make ASIs come true,” the son said.
It might explain some way to put what has been an offensive drive in the last few years, especially in the last two, at the heart of an AI story.
In 2016, SoftBank acquired Chip Designer Arm in a transaction worth around $32 billion at the time. today, arm It is valued at over $145 billion. ARM Blueprints forms the basis for the design of almost every smartphone in the world, but recently the company is looking to establish itself as a key player in AI infrastructure. The arm-based tip is part of it nvidia’A system that enters the data center.
In March, SoftBank also announced plans to acquire another chip designer, Ampere Computing, for $6.5 billion.
ChatGpt Maker Openai is another SoftBank marquee investment, with the Japanese giant saying that its planned investment in the company will reach around 48 trillion yen ($32.7 billion).
SoftBank also invests in many other AI-related companies across its portfolio.
“SoftBank’s AI strategy is comprehensive and spans the entire AI stack, ranging from basic semiconductors, software, infrastructure and robotics to cutting-edge cloud services and applications across critical industries such as enterprise, education, health and autonomous systems to the final application.
“My son’s vision is to connect these components together and deep integration, thereby establishing a strong AI ecosystem designed to maximize the long-term value of its shareholders.”
SoftBank’s equity performance was since 2017 when the first Vision Fund was founded.
Behind SoftBank’s investment in AI companies that come directly from my son is a common theme. This means that these companies need to use advanced intelligence to be more competitive, successful, make their products better and make their customers happy. They could only comment anonymously due to the sensitivity of the issue.
It started with the brain and the robot
As Softbank launched its “Vision for the Next 30 Years of Softbank” in 2010, my son talked about “brain computers” during his presentation. He described these computers as systems that ultimately allow them to learn and program themselves.
And then the robot came. Key engineers such as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Tesla Boss Elon Musk is currently talking about robotics as an important application for AI, but my son had been thinking about it over a decade ago.
In 2012, SoftBank acquired a majority stake in a French company called Aldebaran. Two years later, the two companies launched a humanoid robot called Pepper, which was called “the world’s first individual robot that can read emotions.”
Later, his son stated: “We hope that in 30 years, robots will become one of the core businesses that will generate profits for the SoftBank Group.”
Softbank’s bet on Pepper ultimately floped for the company. SoftBank cut work with robotic units and stopped producing pepper in 2020. In 2022, Germany’s United Robotics Group agreed to acquire Aldebaran from SoftBank.
However, his son’s very early interest in robots underscored his curiosity for future AI applications.
“He was thinking about this very early on, for a long time,” said Sama, author of “The Money Trap.”
In the background, my son was cooking something bigger. This is a technology fund that will create waves in the world of investment. He founded the Vision Fund in 2017, earning $100 billion in rolling capital.
SoftBank has actively invested in companies around the world and has actively invested some of the biggest bets like ride players Uber And the Chinese company Diddy.
But investments in Chinese technology companies and some bad bets on companies like WeWork have exacerbated the Vision Fund’s sentiment as they have lost billions of dollars by 2023.
The vision is bad, but the timing is bad
The market has questioned some of his son’s investments in companies such as Uber and Didi.
But even these investments spoke to his son’s AI’s views, according to a former partner at SoftBank Vision Fund.
“His idea at the time was the first appearance of AI, self-driving cars,” a source told CNBC.
Again, this can be considered too early. Uber created unmanned car units just to sell it. Instead, the company focused on other self-driving car companies and brought them to the Uber platform. Commercial services like Waymo are still available, but driverless vehicles are not spreading on the roads.
SoftBank is still investing in unmanned car companies, including UK startup Wave.
The timing was clearly not on my son’s side. After a record-breaking defeat at the Vision Fund in 2022, my son has declared SoftBank to “defense” mode, cutting investments significantly and being smarter. At this point, companies like Openai were beginning to acquire Steam, but even so, it was before the launch of ChatGpt, which puts the company on the map.
“When these companies became chieftain in 2021 and 2022, Masa would have been in the perfect place, but he used all the ammunition in other companies,” said a former Vision Fund executive.
“When I got older in 2021 and 22, the Vision Fund was investing in 500-600 different companies, but he was not in a position to invest in AI, so I missed that.”
My son himself said this year that SoftBank wanted to invest in Open Eye in 2019, but that was the case. Microsoft It ultimately became a significant investor. Fast forward to 2025, the Vision Fund (there are currently two) has a portfolio filled with AI-focused companies.
However, that period has been tough for all investors. The Covid-19 pandemic, booming inflation and rising rates have collided with public and private markets all along after years of monetary policy and high-tech bull runs.
Softbank didn’t think it missed the opportunity to invest that time in AI, said someone familiar with the company.
Instead, the source added that the company considers it to be a very early stage in the AI investment cycle.
Risk and rewards
AI technology moves rapidly, from chips that run software to models that support common applications.
The US and China tech giants are fighting to produce constantly blessed AI models aimed at reaching artificial general information (AGI). With billions of dollars in investments in technology, the risks are high and the rewards could be even higher.
But confusion can come from wherever you come.
This year, Chinese company Deepseek created a wave after releasing a so-called inference model that appears to be developed cheaper than its US rivals. The fact that Chinese companies managed the feat despite all export restrictions of advanced technology, despite shaking the global financial markets they had bet on the US, had an unattackable AI lead.
The market has since recovered, but the possibility of surprising advancements in technology at such an early stage in AI remains a major risk, such as SoftBank.
“Like most technology investments, the key challenge is investing in winning technology. While much of SoftBank’s investments are at current leaders, AI is still in its relative early stages.
Still, the son revealed that he wants to set up Softbank with DNA that will survive and thrive for 300 years, according to the company’s website.
It may be that there is some way to explain the great risks his son takes, his beliefs about certain subjects and businesses, and the assessments he is willing to pay.
“He (the son) made some mistakes, but in the direction he goes to the same Driving Ection. It’s what I want to make sure he is a real player in AI and that he’s making it happen,” said the former Vision Fund Exec.
