Junichi Miyakawa, the President and CEO of SoftBank stated on January 1st that he believes “2025 will be a year of unprecedented upheavals hinging on AI.”
He stated in a New Year’s greeting that ChatGPT has developed to the point where it can produce text, photos, videos, and even audio, with “advanced PhD-level reasoning abilities,” in less than two years following its launch in November 2022. Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which is thought to possess “ten times the intellect of all humanity, will emerge, and AI will begin to function like personal assistants,” is expected to develop and start acting like personal assistants, he continued.
Furthering, Softbank’s President had this to say: “As such advanced forms of AI are implemented and utilised across various industries and society, the value of the infrastructure supporting AI will increase, making the role that SoftBank plays increasingly important. SoftBank will further promote the construction of a foundation that supports this future AI society and the advancement of communication networks, pushing forward with the social implementation and utilisation of AI, to become the company that is most needed by people and society.
“Around the world, the development and provision of various AI services, including services based on generative AI, continued to appear in rapid succession, making 2024 a year where we could truly feel the arrival of an AI-driven society,” he added.
He went on to discuss the advancements made in the realisation of next-generation social infrastructure, which is a key element of SoftBank’s Long-Term Vision for 2024. This involves the creation of the AI-RAN integrated solution, AITRAS, and the public release of domestic Japanese large language models (LLMs) with 460 billion parameters for research purposes.
In his closing remarks with BrandSpur banking and finance news, “Providing Answers to Social Issues,” he stated that we will keep tackling social issues and working to use technology to make people happier.
