July 14, 2026, (Inside AI) — SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son declared on Tuesday that artificial intelligence will demand $5 trillion in annual investment by 2040, dismissing bubble fears as “absurd.”
Speaking at SoftBank’s annual corporate conference in Tokyo, Son framed the staggering figure as a necessity for an AI-driven future. “Every year $5 trillion, or 800 trillion yen, you might think that’s a lie, but I am confident that’s what it will cost,” he told attendees.
Son offered no detailed methodology for his projection, nor for his claim that AI could capture 20% of global GDP by 2040. Yet he insisted the economics would work. “The business model will be viable because by 2040, if AI revenue makes up 20% of global GDP, spending 800 trillion yen a year is a rounding error,” he said.
The pronouncement comes as SoftBank deepens its AI bets, having poured tens of billions into OpenAI, data centers, and robotics. Its cumulative investment in the ChatGPT maker is set to exceed $60 billion before 2026 ends.
Son’s vision extends beyond dollars. He predicted AI data centers will need 3 terawatts of power by 2040—1.8 times current global electricity consumption. Initially gas-fired, that energy would eventually shift to nuclear fusion. “Will we use solar power in space as Elon Musk says? Maybe we will use both, but if you ask me fusion on earth will be the cheaper, cleaner energy source,” Son said.
From a Human-Centric to an Agent-Centric World
Son outlined a society where 100 trillion AI agents make autonomous decisions and communicate among themselves. “We will go from a human-centric world to an agent-centric world. The age when humans are the highest life form on earth will end. For better or for worse, it will happen and it can’t be stopped,” he said.
The remarks echo his long-standing techno-optimism, which has yielded both historic wins and spectacular losses. An early Alibaba stake and the iPhone’s Japanese debut cemented his reputation, but WeWork’s collapse tempered the narrative.
Now, with AI stocks soaring and infrastructure spending ballooning, skepticism has grown. Son pushed back forcefully. “Asking if AI is a bubble is absurd. I don’t think people who ask that question know what AI is about,” he said.
Yet his $5 trillion figure lacks peer validation. The International Energy Agency projects global energy investment at roughly $3 trillion annually by 2030 under net-zero scenarios—well below Son’s AI-only target. And while Goldman Sachs estimates generative AI could raise global GDP by 7% over a decade, that’s far from a 20% share.
Son’s agent-centric prophecy also invites scrutiny. Today’s multi-agent systems remain brittle and expensive. Scaling to 100 trillion agents implies breakthroughs in coordination, safety, and compute efficiency that are not yet on the horizon.
Still, SoftBank’s actions match its rhetoric. The firm is assembling an AI ecosystem spanning chips, cloud, and applications, betting that infrastructure owners will capture the value. Whether that bet pays off may depend on factors Son did not address: regulatory frameworks, energy bottlenecks, and the pace of fusion commercialization.
For now, Son is asking the world to trust his vision—a vision that, if even half right, would reshape the global economy.
