Son Jeong-ui forecasts the humanoid robot market will reach 6,000 quadrillion won by 2040

SoftBank Group Chairman Masayoshi Son predicted that by 2040, the humanoid robot market equipped with artificial intelligence could exceed 6 quadrillion won. In a lecture on July 14 for executives and employees of affiliated companies in Tokyo, he said the center of labor would shift from humans to robots. Assuming a scenario in which about 1 billion humanoid robots are operating, Chairman Son explained that the related market size could reach 7,000 trillion yen, or about 6 quadrillion 440 trillion won. He also forecast that an economic structure could emerge in which AI agents on the order of 100 trillion are interconnected. To support this spread of AI, he estimated that annual investment of 800 trillion yen, or about 7,400 trillion won, would be needed in infrastructure such as data centers, power, and semiconductors. SoftBank has already started a business in the U.S. leasing AI computing resources, and it is also expanding related infrastructure investment by establishing a joint venture that provides AI semiconductors and cloud services.