Cailianshe (Shanghai, editor Shi Zhengcheng) reported that on Wednesday local time, local time, SoftBank Group Chairman Masayoshi Son in his opening speech at SoftBank World 2021, once again promoted the recently hit intelligent robot industry, and described its prospect of replacing traditional industrial robots as "the iPhone 4 sweeping feature phone back then."
In the video speech, Masayoshi Son also regarded this industry as a key node in restarting the Japanese economy. Although no specific basis or source is given, Son said that AI-powered intelligent robots work three times that of humans and can produce 3.5 times more productive efficiency, which also means that these robots can achieve 10 times more competitive than ordinary workers. If 100 million such robots can be deployed in Japan, the productivity of these robots alone can reach the level of a country with a population of 1 billion.
(Source: SoftBank )
Masayoshi Son's SoftBank Group relied on winning the exclusive distribution rights of iPhone in Japan in 2008, thus establishing its position in the Japanese telecom market. Due to the crushing advantages of the product, Apple's smartphones quickly seized a large market share from feature phones that local manufacturers are keen on. Son said that Japanese factories have always been famous for their large number of robots, but the speed at which smart robots replace traditional industrial machines will reproduce the scene of iPhone crushing feature machines.
It is worth mentioning that Masayoshi Son advocates that intelligent robots are somewhat boastful. According to SoftBank Group, the company currently has a total of 18 investments in the robotics industry, mainly through two SoftBank Vision Funds. Masayoshi Son also used Gaussian Robotics, a Chinese robot company invested by SoftBank, as a demonstration case at the event. The cleaning robot produced by the company can automatically identify garbage and complete cleaning.
For SoftBank, its investment in the field of intelligent robots is still in a state of not being recognized by the market. Just last year, Pepper, a highly-known humanoid robot, stopped production because it was unpopular. Earlier this year, SoftBank also sold its controlling stake in the industry leader Boston Dynamics to South Korea Hyundai, where Masayoshi Son still insisted that Boston Dynamics was a "perfect" company and emphasized that SoftBank still holds a small amount of equity.
In a speech on Wednesday, Masayoshi Son also responded to the frustration of Pepper and said that the company will launch the next generation of more functional smart robot Smabo, the name comes from the combination of "smart" and "robot" in Japanese.
