TOKYO - SoftBank Group Corp. Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son said Tuesday that 1 billion humanoid robots equipped with artificial intelligence will be created by 2040 to make a "fundamental" change in the work environment.
"The age of humans being the highest life form will end," Son said at an annual corporate conference, with 100 trillion AI agents, which function autonomously without human instructions, expected to work by that year.
Son said AI agents will be able to replicate themselves and enable other AI agents to evolve and generate even more agents, marking a transition from a human-centered society to an agent-centered one.
"It will be necessary for people to evolve alongside (AI agents) rather than rejecting them," he said.
The CEO said AI-related industries will account for about 20 percent of the global gross domestic product by 2040 or 7 quadrillion yen ($43 trillion).
Son projected 3 terawatts of electricity will be needed for AI data centers by the year, about 1.8 times the current global power consumption, when AI agents become the dominant driver of the economy, and additional power of about 1 terawatt will be necessary a year thereafter.
He said AI infrastructure will require annual investment of $5 trillion.
In recent years, the Japanese technology investment company has concentrated its investments on AI-related businesses, including semiconductors, robotics and data centers.
