Overview
- At SoftBank Group’s shareholder meeting on Wednesday, June 24, founder Masayoshi Son, 68, said he will continue as chairman and CEO and intends to lead the company for another 10 to 15 years.
- Son framed the company’s strategy around AI expansion, highlighting investments tied to partners such as OpenAI and saying SoftBank is rolling out “physical AI” where robots help build other robots in its factories.
- SoftBank reported a record annual net profit of about ¥5 trillion for the fiscal year ending March 2026, a result Son cited as the funding source for the next wave of AI and infrastructure spending.
- The group is accelerating plans to build large AI data centers in the United States and Europe, and Son said SoftBank’s telecom arm remains among candidates in talks with Tokyo Electric Power for the power needed to run those centers.
- If successful, the push could reshape where and how large AI services are hosted by tying capital-intensive computing to secured local power supplies and by scaling automated manufacturing, with implications for energy markets, regional data capacity, and factory jobs.