Soft Bank’s Masayoshi Son believes that nuclear fusion will be the key to meeting the energy needs of future AI development
Group founder Masayoshi Son said that in the near future, nuclear fusion technology will provide the most practical solution to meet the growing power demand of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. Sun Zhengyi said that natural gas will still meet most of the power needs of data centers for now. But he predicts that nuclear fusion will play an important role in future energy supplies and predicts that global data centers will require 3 terawatts of capacity by 2040. "Nuclear fusion will become a new major source of cheaper, cleaner and safer energy on Earth," Son, 68, said at the annual SoftBank World event in Tokyo. "Is it really appropriate to continue using so much natural gas to generate electricity? I think in 15 years, nuclear fusion will take over." Son believes that the huge investment required to build data center infrastructure will eventually pay for itself, refuting outsiders’ doubts about whether hundreds of billions of dollars in investment in AI hardware can produce returns. He said, “Asking whether AI is a bubble is an extremely stupid question.” Only those who do not understand or have not used AI in depth would ask this question. He warned that if Japan fails to realize the potential of AI, the Japanese economy will miss the opportunity to create wealth, which is the opportunity to create companies such as , Meta Platforms Inc. Such a world-class technology giant.