SoftBank planning to invest $1 trillion for AI effort in US: Report

By Brandon Sapienza and Min Jeong Lee

  SoftBank Group Corp. plans to create industrial parks for artificial intelligence across the US and is considering an investment of more than $1 trillion, Nikkei reported. 

Founder and Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son is expected to visit the US to discuss his ideas for such industrial parks, the newspaper said.  The factories would likely use AI-equipped robots that would operate autonomously because of labor shortages in the country, according to the report. 

Son teamed up with OpenAI and Oracle Corp. in January to unveil a $100 billion joint venture to fund AI infrastructure in the US, one of the first such pledges after Donald Trump became president.  They said at the time they would deploy $100 billion immediately with the goal of increasing that to at least $500 billion for data centers and physical campuses.  

The companies said at the time that the initial equity would come from the three companies and Abu Dhabi state investor MGX, with a buildout of the first computing system starting in Texas.