Masayoshi Son has reclaimed the title of "Asia's Richest Person." A decade ago, Alibaba was his key to wealth; today, it's AI and computing power.
On June 3, according to real-time data from the Forbes Rich List, the net worth of Softbank Group Corp founder and CEO Masayoshi Son climbed to $100.4 billion, marking his return to the top of Asia's wealth rankings after a 12-year gap.
The surge in Son's fortune stems from the market's enthusiasm for Softbank Group Corp shares. The company has gained favor with capital markets due to its heavy bets on AI, with its stock price soaring 21.27% in a single day on June 1, pushing its market capitalization to briefly touch the 50 trillion yen mark.
As of the close on the 3rd, the Japanese-listed Softbank Group Corp stock has surged over 300% in the past year.
Previously, Son's wealth growth was concentrated in two main periods. Around the year 2000, SoftBank made heavy bets on internet portals and e-commerce infrastructure, with its $8 million investment in Alibaba becoming its foundational success. At one point, its stake in Alibaba accounted for 60% of SoftBank's net assets. Following the launch of the SoftBank Vision Fund in 2017, some of Son's major investments, failing to meet profit expectations, led to losses.
This time, Son has shifted his investment focus, significantly increasing his stake in the European market.
SoftBank's Strategic Pivot: Deepening Investment in European Computing Infrastructure
On May 31, Softbank Group Corp announced plans to invest up to €75 billion in France to build an AI computing cluster network with a total capacity of 5GW.
According to the agreement, the first phase of this computing cluster requires an investment of €45 billion and is expected to deliver 3.1GW of computing capacity in the Hauts-de-France region of northern France by 2031.
SoftBank's bet comes just as Europe is on the verge of launching large-scale initiatives for computing power and energy autonomy. Around the same time, European renewable energy developer WBS Power announced its "Baltic Data Center Campus" plan in northern Poland. The project, with a total capacity of 3.2GW, will be constructed in four phases of 800MW each. The construction cost for just the first phase is estimated between €6.9 billion and €8.6 billion.
However, compared to the investment intensity of SoftBank's project, the scale of the WBS Power project remains significantly different. Estimates suggest SoftBank's project involves an investment intensity of approximately €14.5 billion to €15 billion per gigawatt (GW). In contrast, the WBS Power Poland project has an estimated investment cost of about €8.6 billion to €10.7 billion per GW.
Data center construction costs in Europe show significant regional and technological gradients. Industry analysis suggests that the average cost per megawatt in Western Europe is about €7 million higher than in Central and Eastern Europe. Countries like Poland and Greece have become emerging investment destinations due to lower land costs, while mature markets like France naturally have higher costs. However, technical specifications and the responsiveness of economically developed regions are key variables. AI high-performance computing clusters, requiring advanced liquid cooling and high-redundancy designs, can cost over $20 million per megawatt. SoftBank's project, positioned as a "large-scale AI computing cluster," is highly likely to adopt the highest standards; the WBS Power plan may be based on relatively standard hyperscale data center designs.
Project scope also affects total investment: SoftBank's €75 billion plan encompasses an industrial ecosystem including AI infrastructure and robotics manufacturing, while WBS Power focuses more on the low-carbon energy infrastructure itself. Although both involve AI computing power, there are clear differences in the breadth of investment and cost structure.
Examining Son's past investments, SoftBank has effectively positioned itself as the "water seller" for the computing power needs of Silicon Valley's "Hyperscalers."
For example, last year SoftBank participated in the US "Stargate" data center cluster, a joint plan by companies including OpenAI and Oracle with a total estimated investment of $500 billion. However, SoftBank's explicitly committed direct capital expenditure was about $66 billion, an amount less than its current European project. Concurrently, a mirror of the "Stargate" plan was initiated in the Middle East: the "UAE Stargate" project announced by UAE tech giant G42, OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia, Cisco, and SoftBank, aiming to build a 5GW computing center in Abu Dhabi. However, it's clear that G42 will be the primary party coordinating the capital expenditure and scale of this project.
Compared to these investments, SoftBank's European project differs significantly from the multi-party collaboration model seen above. It is reportedly SoftBank's largest AI infrastructure investment in Europe and its single largest AI investment commitment outside the United States. In terms of collaboration, although the project involves cooperation with French utility EDF at the Bouchain site and with Schneider Electric to build an industrial cluster at the Port of Dunkirk, Softbank Group Corp will be the project's primary investor, developer, and future operator.
Amidst the narrative of AI changing the world, the capital market has backed SoftBank's decision with real money, pushing its total market capitalization to the 50 trillion yen threshold.
Son's Focus on the New AI Cycle
Masayoshi Son's investment appetite for AI is in no way inferior to that of Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, or Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei.
Beyond making massive investments in computing power assets, SoftBank is focusing on two main investment themes: the general large language model track centered on OpenAI, and the semiconductor chip design field represented by Arm.
To fund this, SoftBank even sold its entire stake in Nvidia to raise substantial investment capital, an act Son candidly admitted brought him to tears.
Statistics show SoftBank's investment in Arm, from privatization to capital injections, totals nearly $48 billion. Its cumulative investment in OpenAI is even greater, exceeding $60 billion.
Son's goal is clear: he aims to become a global provider and coordinator of foundational infrastructure for the super-AI era, rather than just a financial investor.
The term "aggressive" alone seems insufficient to describe Son's current investment fervor. Recently, he has publicly asserted multiple times that the scale of the current AI wave could be "50 times" that of the internet boom over two decades ago, believing we are at the start of a technological revolution spanning 50 to 100 years.
Furthermore, he has not shied away from dismissing proponents of an "AI bubble," calling them "not very smart."
Beyond his lavish spending, Son is also incubating his own AI agents and project systems within SoftBank. Last year, he proposed a plan to "create 1 billion AI agents within the group," launched an enterprise-level AI service called "Cristal intelligence," and in the field of embodied AI, SoftBank acquired the robotics business of ABB, one of the "big four" industrial robotics firms, for approximately $5.4 billion. This is its largest investment in this field to date, aimed at acquiring mature industrial automation scenarios and a global factory network to provide a real-world testing ground and training data for AI technology. Additionally, SoftBank led an investment in embodied AI company Skild AI, which is currently valued at nearly $5 billion.
By comprehensively anchoring its position across the entire AI industry chain, Masayoshi Son is fully committed to seizing the new AI cycle.
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