SoftBank Plans to Commit $9 Billion to AI Projects

Group 1 - SoftBank plans to invest nearly $9 billion in artificial intelligence (AI), with its investment commitments more than doubling to $8.9 billion in the past year [1][2] - The CFO of SoftBank, Yoshimitsu Goto, indicated that the company aims to maintain its investment pace and increase investments in AI companies [2] - CEO Masayoshi Son projected that artificial general intelligence (AGI) could become ten times more powerful than all of humanity by the end of the decade [2] Group 2 - SoftBank faces intense competition in the AI sector from tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, which have invested billions in AI partnerships [3] - Microsoft and Amazon have allocated over $40 billion combined for AI-related and data center projects this year, with Microsoft planning to invest more than $16 billion globally and Amazon setting aside $15 billion in Japan alone [4] - The push for heavy investment in AI infrastructure is driven by the growing global demand for AI technologies and the need for secure and efficient data processing in cloud computing [5]