SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son Says $5 Trillion Annually Needed for Global AI Infrastructure
SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son aggressively dismissed fears of an artificial intelligence bubble during a Tokyo business event, predicting that staggering capital outlays will eventually yield 20% of the world's GDP by 2040.
In a forceful defense of the booming artificial intelligence industry, SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son declared that an eye-watering $5 trillion in annual global investment will be required by 2040 to build out the technology's infrastructure. Speaking at a company event in Tokyo on Tuesday, the billionaire investor flatly rejected growing market anxieties over an AI valuation bubble, calling such concerns "absurd." Son's remarks underscore a doubling down on a hyper-concentrated corporate strategy, positioning SoftBank at the nucleus of what he views as an inevitable evolution toward artificial superintelligence.
"Spitting Upward" at Innovation
Addressing executives at the annual SoftBank World event, Son took aim at skeptics who warn that the meteoric rise of AI-related stocks—such as Nvidia—and the massive capital expenditure on data centers will fail to yield commensurate returns. He likened current critics of the technology to historical naysayers who questioned the utility of automobiles and airplanes .
"To ask whether AI is a bubble is a foolish question,"Son proclaimed, asserting that those who condemn the technology are essentially refusing their own evolution and "spitting upward" .
The scale of the infrastructure required to meet Son's vision is staggering. He estimates that data centers will demand roughly 3 terawatts of electricity by 2040, a figure representing nearly 1.8 times the current total global power consumption . To fuel this massive energy deficit, Son predicted an initial heavy reliance on natural gas before nuclear fusion potentially matures into a primary, long-term energy source . His $5 trillion annual price tag—or roughly 800 trillion yen—would finance not just energy, but the expansive production of advanced computer chips and the construction of state-of-the-art data facilities worldwide.
Though the investment required is monumental, Son argued the macroeconomic payoff will dwarf the costs. By his calculations, AI could account for approximately 20% of global GDP by 2040 . If those artificial intelligence revenues materialize at roughly $46 trillion globally, the $5 trillion in ongoing capital expenditure would represent a mere "rounding error" on the global balance sheet .
Walking the $60 Billion Talk
SoftBank's recent portfolio maneuvers reflect a deliberate pivot from broad consumer technology investments to highly targeted AI wagers. Over the past two years, the conglomerate has injected tens of billions of dollars into AI models, specialized robotics, and computing power frameworks . The firm's cumulative investment in OpenAI alone is widely expected to exceed $60 billion before the close of 2026, anchoring SoftBank at the center of the generative AI boom .
The 68-year-old billionaire envisions an imminent "agent-driven future," where approximately 100 trillion AI agents and billions of humanoid robots seamlessly handle industrial, logistical, and personal tasks . For Son, failure to adopt this technology poses an existential threat to legacy corporations, urging executives to embrace AI deeply if they wish to remain competitive over the next decade .
Whether Masayoshi Son will be remembered as the visionary architect of the intelligence age or as the casualty of a historic speculative fever depends entirely on whether his staggering calculus comes to fruition. For now, SoftBank is not waiting for the market to decide—it is aggressively deploying capital to ensure the infrastructure for a super-intelligent tomorrow is built today.