TIME100 AI 2024: Masayoshi Son

F ew people spot the next big trend as consistently as Masayoshi Son. Under his leadership, Japan’s SoftBank pivoted from an internet broadband provider into a mobile phone network company and most recently an investment giant boasting assets worth $180 billion. Today, Son is pivoting again into what he believes will be the key source of future growth: AI, which he’s backing with $9 billion a year in investments. In May, SoftBank led an investment of over $1 billion into British self-driving car start-up Wayve, in Europe’s largest AI deal to date. Under the majority ownership of Softbank, leading semiconductor firm Arm is also rolling out a new generation of AI-enabled chips. But Son is not just a champion of AI—he’s embraced the technology with the zeal of a convert, backing ASI, or artificial super intelligence, to become “10,000 times smarter” than humans in a decade. “Softbank was founded to realize ASI,” he told an annual shareholder’s meeting in June. “Masayoshi Son was born to realize ASI.”

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Write to Charlie Campbell at charlie.campbell@time.com .