Has Masayoshi Son further inflated the artificial intelligence bubble?

Wall Street: AI competition has reached its peak. Masayoshi Son: Wait for me!

Renowned entrepreneur, investor, and founder of SoftBank Group, Masayoshi Son, said he is obsessed with achieving "super artificial intelligence" and believes he is destined to achieve this goal. Therefore, Masayoshi Son is actively investing in generative AI startups focusing on areas such as autonomous driving, data centers, and AI robots.

However, under the "AI bubble theory" on Wall Street, Bloomberg opinion columnist Parmy Olson believes that Masayoshi Son may further exacerbate the trend of skyrocketing valuations and overheating speculation in tech companies, leading the AI market towards unsustainable growth. Injecting a large amount of capital into the nascent generative AI market may create a high-pressure environment, causing companies to burn money rapidly in pursuit of exponential growth.

Masayoshi Son: Destined to Achieve This Goal

In 2019, Masayoshi Son established the Vision Fund with the intention of seizing the so-called "singularity" - a hypothetical critical point often defined as the moment when AI surpasses the human brain.

At this year's SoftBank annual shareholders meeting, Masayoshi Son expressed his obsession with achieving "super artificial intelligence" and stated that he is destined to achieve this goal, considering his past investments as just warm-ups.

Therefore, Masayoshi Son has been making significant moves in the AI field recently:

Last month, he invested $500 million in OpenAI through the Vision Fund; earlier this year, he led a $1 billion investment in the UK autonomous driving car manufacturer Wayve, and invested around $20 million in the competitor of Google Search, Perplexity AI.

Masayoshi Son recently told investors that he will continue to seek investment opportunities in areas such as autonomous driving, data centers, and AI robots. This will be a substantial support for many generative AI startups in these fields, as startups in this industry dominated by tech giants are in urgent need of funding.

Alok Sama, former president of SoftBank Group International, stated:

"Masayoshi Son's ambition is to become the 'high priest' of the AI field."

Masayoshi Son May Further Aggravate the Volatility of the AI Market

Currently, analysts have put forward the "AI bubble theory": skyrocketing valuations and overheating speculation in tech companies. In the two years since the launch of ChatGPT, the market value of the six tech giants (Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, NVIDIA, Meta) has increased by $8.2 trillion.

Olson suggests that Masayoshi Son may further exacerbate these trends, leading the AI market towards unsustainable growth.

Injecting a large amount of capital into emerging markets will have obvious consequences: creating a high-pressure environment where companies rapidly burn money in pursuit of exponential growth.

When most companies fail, they may collapse in a spectacular fashion like WeWork, leading to dire consequences. (WeWork, a shared office space giant, faced severe crisis in 2019 when its financial condition and business model sustainability were widely questioned during its attempted IPO.) Olson stated that the generative AI market is in its early stages and does not require such volatile big bets:

Good intentions may not necessarily lead to good results. At the very least, Masayoshi Son's involvement may make this path even more challenging