SoftBank Trillion Dollar AI Investor

Japan's SoftBank to be Godzilla of tech investment

Wants be worlds biggest investor in tech and AI

If you think things are changing fast in tech and AI, they are about to get even faster - a trillion dollars faster. SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son has set up a fund to invest nearly a trillion dollars, $880 billion, into young tech and AI companies worldwide. And that will include a lot of US companies.

It will go down as either a bold masterstroke or a collision with a swampy mess of tech unicorns unable to fly. But one thing is sure. It will definitely stir up some action. 

"The Vision Fund was just the first step, 10 trillion yen ($88 billion) is simply not enough," CEO Masayoshi Son said in an interview with The Nikkei Asian Review that was published late Thursday. "We will briskly expand the scale. Vision Funds 2, 3 and 4 will be established every two to three years."

"We are creating a mechanism to increase our funding ability from 10 trillion yen to 20 trillion yen to 100 trillion yen," Son told the outlet. That comes out to about $880 billion.From CNBC

Japanese AI behind US and China Softbank could change that

Son's investment in AI has been impressive. With Japan's AI not on par with China and the US, lacking any companies like Google or Alibaba, Softbank's colossal investment could be a way to make a bigger mark in AI on the world stage. 

And there is this: 

In a Sept. 20 speech in New York, Masayoshi Son, founder of the Tokyo company SoftBank, forecast that by 2047, the Earth will be populated by an equivalent number of humans and robots — 10 billion each. And the robots, he said, will be "smarter than mankind." Over the last year, Son has been investing in that moment.

So far, the Japanese telecom, digital, and internet company has invested in 144 tech companies worldwide with 76 as lead investor. 

List of AI companies Softbank has invested in, totaling approximately $1.8 billion

Sofi, Guardant Health, Kabbage, Plenty, Nauto, Zymergen, Brain, Cybereason, Petuum, Appier, Zymperium, OSLoft. From Axios