Masayoshi Son predicts $5 trillion annual AI investment and fusion power by 2040

SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son told executives at the company’s annual SoftBank World conference in Tokyo that artificial‑intelligence development will require about $5 trillion of investment each year by 2040. He said that AI could account for roughly 20 % of global GDP at that time, making the spending a “rounding error”.

Son projected that AI‑driven data centres will need around 3 terawatts of power, about 1.8 times current worldwide consumption. Natural gas will meet most of the demand in the near term, but he expects nuclear‑fusion energy to become the primary source once it is commercially viable. He dismissed concerns about an AI investment bubble as “absurd”.

SoftBank is positioning itself as a core AI platform, with cumulative investments exceeding $60 billion in OpenAI and large stakes in Arm, robotics firms and data‑centre projects. Son also described a future where hundreds of trillions of autonomous AI agents operate without human oversight, turning the world from human‑centric to agent‑centric.