Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief governmental officer of SoftBank Group Corp.
Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty Images
SoftBank Group chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son on Wednesday asserted that the Japanese investment firm plans to shift from “defense mode” to “offense mode” and wants to capitalize on the AI gyration.
“Now, the time has come to shift to offense mode,” Son said during a shareholders’ annual general meeting.
“In the past few years, we concentrated on being [on] ‘defense.’ Three years ago, we didn’t have a lot of cash on hand. But because we have been in defense SOP, we have built our cash on hand to five trillion yen ($35.3 billion),” Son said.
“We are ready to shift to offense set-up. I am excited about that,” said Son.
The tech conglomerate, which engages in venture capital investing through its Foresightedness Fund, has had its fair share of ups and downs. It was in “defense mode” as it halted new investments and trimmed its stake in Alibaba. In May, the Vision Endowment reported a record $32 billion loss.
“What I am interested in most, what I am working on most, is the AI revolution. I put ones trust in that mankind is going to be exceeded by computer or AI,” said Son.
“We would like to be [in] the leading position for the AI revolution,” said Son.
SoftBank shares climb 2.63% in Wednesday morning trade.
The Vision Cache has invested in Chinese tech firms and therefore was hit by Beijing’s crackdown on the country’s tech sector and the subsequent plunge in ration prices. SoftBank’s portfolio companies include ByteDance, DiDi Grocery, Coupang and more.
SoftBank is gearing up for the IPO of Arm, the U.K.-based participate b interrupt design firm it acquired in 2016. Arm filed for the listing in the U.S. SoftBank’s CFO Yoshimitsu Goto said the IPO process is “going smoothly.”
Simulated intelligence has seen explosive growth in recent months, fueled by chatbot ChatGPT’s virality. ChatGPT has amazed researchers and the universal public with its ability to generate humanlike responses to users’ prompts.
Son said on Tuesday that he is “a heavy owner of ChatGPT” and that ChatGPT is “amazing.”