SoftBank CEO adds driverless tech to 300-year plan with GM deal

SoftBank Group Corp’s Masayoshi Son wants his company to grow for 300 years, and he is willing to pour billions of dollars into far-out technology to make it happen. General Motors, a business that is already more than a century old, is now part of that plan.

GM said on Thursday that the SoftBank Vision Fund is investing US$2.25 billion in its Cruise autonomous-car unit. The deal adds to a collection of long-term bets Son is making through the nearly US$100 billion fund, many of them in the area of automation and artificial intelligence (AI).

He sees AI software making computers smarter than humans, while millions of formerly dumb objects will be linked to the internet. Toward that end, he has acquired chip designer ARM Holdings and backed Nvidia Corp. Half a billion dollars went to start-up Improbable, which is developing detailed virtual worlds.

Ride-hailing moves include stakes in Uber Technologies and China’s Didi Chuxing. In robotics, Son is buying Boston Dynamics and invested in software maker Brain Corp. WeWork and Slack are bets that technology will change how humans work. There are biotech, e-commerce and digital payments deals, too.

“Son is trying to create an unprecedented conglomerate by investing in companies that have a chance to be No. 1 in businesses such as AI and IoT,” said Tomoaki Kawasaki, an analyst at Iwai Cosmo Securities. “If he’s able to find other companies that are strong in autonomous driving, it’s possible we’ll see a second or third round of investments, too.”