SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son announced on Friday that he envisions the Japanese tech investment giant becoming the top platform provider for "artificial super intelligence" (ASI) within the next decade. “We aim to lead the industry in the artificial super intelligence era,” Son said during the company's annual shareholder meeting. He compared his ambition to the dominance of tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google (Alphabet), which have benefited from the “winner-takes-all” effect in their respective domains.

In earlier statements, Son described ASI as artificial intelligence that surpasses human intelligence by a factor of 10,000. After years of cautious spending, SoftBank has resumed its aggressive investment approach—one that earned Son recognition with major early bets like Alibaba, though also brought major losses, such as the collapse of WeWork. This year, the group made significant AI-related investments, including the $6.5 billion acquisition of U.S. chip designer Ampere and a commitment of up to $40 billion in funding for OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

Son revealed that SoftBank’s total committed investment in OpenAI now stands at $32 billion since it began investing in fall 2024. He admitted he wished he had invested earlier and anticipated OpenAI would eventually go public. “I’m fully committed to OpenAI,” he said. SoftBank previously held around a 5% stake in Nvidia, a leading AI chipmaker, but sold it in 2019—prior to the AI boom triggered by ChatGPT’s rise in late 2022. Nvidia has since grown into one of the most valuable companies globally.

Son’s renewed investment drive follows a period of pullback after many of SoftBank's tech startup bets through its Vision Fund lost value in 2022. However, the tide turned when SoftBank raised $5 billion by listing Arm, a British chip designer, in September 2023. Arm’s rising stock value has strengthened SoftBank’s balance sheet, allowing the company to leverage assets for further investments. Son assured shareholders that while SoftBank remains ready to take calculated risks, it continues to uphold a disciplined investment strategy backed by strong financial and user bases.