AI Investing

According to people familiar with the matter, Japanese technology investment giant SoftBank Group is seeking financing for an AI-related investment plan of up to $10 billion. This large-scale investment is mainly aimed at the energy sector, reflecting the profound impact of the current artificial intelligence (AI) boom on traditional industries. After nearly a year of silence, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has recently become active in the public eye again. He expressed great enthusiasm for the future development of AI and elaborated on the grand plan to make SoftBank a leader in the field of AI. Masayoshi Son even boldly predicted that in the next 10 years, artificial super intelligence (ASI) that is 10,000 times smarter than humans will appear...

In the fourth quarter of 2023, global cloud infrastructure service spending increased by 19% year-on-year to US$78.1 billion, an increase of US$12.3 billion from the same period last year. Total annual spending increased from US$247.1 billion in 2022 to US$290.4 billion, an increase of 18%. The impact of enterprise IT optimization on the cloud service market has gradually weakened, and more and more companies have expanded their consumer contract agreements with leading cloud vendors to meet growing demand. At the same time, cloud migration has re-accelerated, and new demand has surged, especially with the widespread adoption of AI applications. Canalys predicts that global cloud infrastructure service spending will reach US$1.1 billion in 2024...