SoftBank's Masayoshi Son Is Not Optimistic About Elon Musk's Space Data Centers, Says the Key to Winning the AI Race Lies in Ground-Based Computing Power

Glonghui, June 23 — SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son stated that the space data center proposal, strongly promoted by Elon Musk, has limited value, and the outcome of the artificial intelligence race will be determined by terrestrial computing power. On Tuesday, during SoftBank's annual mobile business shareholders meeting, Masayoshi Son discussed that the main perceived advantage of building space data centers is a substantial reduction in electricity costs, but electricity fees constitute only a small portion of a data center's overall operating expenses, with chips and other hardware being the major expenditures. He added that even if electricity costs could be saved, companies would still face high material space transportation costs, maintenance expenses, and communication latency issues, which outweigh the benefits. On-site, a SoftBank shareholder asked whether the Japanese company would follow Tesla's CEO's grand vision. Masayoshi Son responded: “AI competition over the next few years is far more critical than distant plans for ten years from now.” SoftBank will focus on building large-scale, robust terrestrial data center computing power. In his view: “First movers will win.”