SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son scraps plan to retire in his sixties

[TOKYO] SoftBank Group’s Masayoshi Son said that he plans to hold onto the top spot at the technology group he founded for another decade or more, shredding his long-held plan to hand over the reins in his sixties.

The 68-year-old tech investor said that he’s now eager to help accelerate artificial intelligence proliferation and make SoftBank into the world’s preeminent AI-powered robotics company.

“I don’t have time to retire,” he said, referencing SoftBank’s pursuit of what he sees as fundamental long-term technologies. He’s revised his 50-year plan and will work for another 10 or 15 years.

SoftBank, which owns almost 90 per cent in chip designer Arm Holdings, has been accelerating its investments into AI-related companies. It has committed to investing about US$65 billion into OpenAI and has agreed to acquire ABB’s robotics unit at a value of roughly US$5.4 billion.

SoftBank is in early discussions to participate in a US$800 million funding round by Agile Robots, Bloomberg News has reported. SoftBank has previously led a funding round in the German robotics startup.

SoftBank also plans to establish and list an AI and robotics company called Roze in the US in a bid to expand its presence in the fast-growing sector, sources familiar with the matter have said.

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The company aims to create and float such a vehicle as soon as this year, though the timing on that could slip to 2027. BLOOMBERG