Creating a "Seven Sisters" level giant! Masayoshi Son seeks to raise $100 billion to establish an AI chip company

On Friday, media reports cited insiders revealing that SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son is seeking to raise $100 billion to establish an artificial intelligence chip company to compete with Nvidia and hopes that the company can complement ARM in its business.

Son's chip project marks his next major move, despite SoftBank's current significant reduction in venture capital investments. If successful, this will be the largest investment in the field of artificial intelligence since the emergence of ChatGPT, far exceeding Microsoft's investment of over $10 billion in OpenAI.

Son's artificial intelligence chip project is codenamed Izanagi. Son directly leads the project. Izanagi is the god of creation and life in Japanese mythology. Insiders revealed that one of the reasons Son chose the name Izanagi is that it contains the initials of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Son has been predicting the arrival of AGI in his speeches for many years, stating that a world filled with machines smarter than humans will be safer, healthier, and happier.

In terms of project funding, one plan currently under consideration is that SoftBank will provide $30 billion, and another $70 billion may come from institutions in the Middle East. However, the details of where the overall project funding will come from and how future funds will be spent have yet to be determined.

Son has been constantly trying various investment strategies to strengthen ARM's influence in the artificial intelligence market, as well as exploring different types of next-generation chips. It is currently unclear which company or companies will play a core role:

• Previously, Son and Sam Altman of OpenAI had discussions on jointly establishing a semiconductor manufacturing business and raising funds, but it seems that the Izanagi project is not consistent with Altman's ambitions. Last week, according to media reports, Altman is negotiating with investors including the United Arab Emirates to raise trillions of dollars in funds, aiming to improve global chip manufacturing capabilities and target the "chip pain points" of AI.
• Son also attempted to invest in another company that is developing fundamental artificial intelligence models and asked the company's leadership to help the chip enterprise, but the request was rejected.

Although SoftBank has encountered a series of serious setbacks in venture capital investments in recent years, Son is now focusing his energy on ARM. Insiders said that Son sees an opportunity to create a giant company on par with the "Big Seven Sisters". SoftBank has been exploring the use of ARM's chip design methods. ARM CEO Rene Haas is providing advice to Son on this project.

According to people who have worked with Son, he is known for suddenly changing his mind, and when meeting with him, he will propose various names and technologies. However, Son's enthusiasm for AGI has never wavered. In October last year, he told a group of Japanese corporate clients that they either adopt AI or fall behind. He said he is confident that AGI will become a reality within 10 years. On the early morning of February 16th, OpenAI's first text-to-video model, Sora, made its official debut. Sora demonstrated the ability of artificial intelligence to understand real-world scenarios and interact with them, which is considered an important step towards achieving general artificial intelligence (AGI).