SoftBank Son Says AI Will Need 5 Trillion Dollars a Year by 2040 Dismisses Bubble Talk

Masayoshi Son laid out an audacious vision at the annual SoftBank conference in Tokyo: 5 trillion dollars in annual AI investment, 100 trillion AI agents, and humanoid robots replacing human physical labor, all by 2040. He called bubble talk absurd.

Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank Group, told attendees at the company annual conference in Tokyo on Tuesday that the development of AI will require 5 trillion dollars in annual global investment by 2040, spanning data centers, electricity grids, and semiconductor manufacturing. He dismissed concerns of an AI bubble as absurd.

Son predicted that 100 trillion AI agents will be deployed globally within 15 years. Humanoid robots will take the main role in physical labor, replacing humans, he told the audience, as reported by AsiaOne.

The SoftBank founder went further, forecasting that AI will account for 20 percent of global GDP by 2040. He also pointed to nuclear fusion as the most realistic long-term solution for meeting the ballooning energy demands of AI data centers, according to The Next Web.

Son emphasized that SoftBank must expand aggressively overseas, particularly in the United States, to remain competitive in the AI race. The remarks come as SoftBank continues to position itself at the center of AI infrastructure investment through its Vision Funds and partnerships with chipmakers and cloud providers.

The scale of these projections, 5 trillion dollars annually is roughly equivalent to Japan current GDP, underscores the magnitude of the bet that the technology industry is placing on AI.

Sources: AsiaOne, The Next Web