SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son announced that he personally expects ARM, the chipmaking division of SoftBank, to have somewhere around one trillion chips built for Internet of Things devices out the door within the next 20 years. That rather large number was accompanied by another dramatic prediction; that leaps in artificial intelligence and robotics points to around 10 billion AI-driven robots being around in 2040. Son also predicted that cyber attacks would increasingly move toward the relatively insecure IoT space, saying that somewhere in the area of 64 percent of cybercrime will be targeted at IoT in the future. According to Son, the current state of IoT security is severely lacking.
Son went on to speak about the sharp decline in revenue faced by modern network providers and carriers because of the smartphone scene beginning to reach its plateau, and the drop in average revenue per user that most networks are experiencing. Due to these, Son stated that it is imperative that networks get on board with alternative revenue streams and leaps in technology as soon as possible. SoftBank, together with the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, has created a $100 billion investment pool meant to do just that, meaning that SoftBank is in a position to set trends and blaze trails, essentially shaping investment and technological growth in the mobile world in years to come.
A Forrester Research analyst on the scene, Jennifer Belissent, called Son’s predictions “dramatic”, saying that if his predictions come true, the implications for smart devices and the space as a whole could be immense. She went on to say that the almost fantastical figures would have to go hand in hand with a way to get the technology to consumers. Son stated that powerful chipsets with more “brain cells” than the average human will be developed in 2018, and as chips grow more powerful, he expects them to outclass their users by huge margins in the near future, comparing the average human IQ of 100 to a theoretical future AI IQ of 10,000. This falls nicely in line with others in the tech industry who expect AI to surpass their human creators in intelligence very soon, and are shaping their business moves today around such a future event.