Japanese students "don't study if they are not asked … let's put it as mandatory, then Japanese students will catch up," Son told a government conference aimed at fostering innovation. The comments came as Son pointed to the widening gap in GDP and AI-related patents filed in Japan compared to China and the United States. "Japan has lost the past, but may [also] be losing the future," he said. Son said Japan should focus on two areas -- autonomous driving and DNA-centered medicine -- to help combat the pressures of its rapidly aging society, which is seeing a rise in traffic accidents involving elderly drivers and health care costs. "Even today's technology of autonomous driving is better than senior citizens driving on the street," Son said.

Robots will be 100 times more intelligent than the average human in 30 years, the CEO of tech giant SoftBank has claimed. Billionaire tech mogul Masayoshi Son, 60, said that by 2047 artificial intelligence (AI) will have reached an IQ of 10,000. By comparison, the average human IQ is 100, while anything over 140 is a'genius' score. Mensa, the'high IQ society', only accepts members with a score above 130. Speaking at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Wednesday, Mr Son said: 'This is the first time ... the tool becomes smarter than ourselves.'

Masayoshi Son, chief executive of SoftBank Group Corp., says artificial intelligence combined with data gathered by billions of sensors will bring on an "information revolution," that will benefit people more than the 19th Century Industrial Revolution. Son, Japan's richest person, told Softbank customers and partners gathered at a Tokyo hotel on Thursday that he believes massive data will help treat cancer, deliver accident-free driving and grow safer food. SoftBank has bought leading British semiconductor company ARM, and its acquisition of U.S. robotics pioneer Boston Dynamics, announced last month, is undergoing regulatory approval. Its investments have included Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba and Yahoo Japan. SoftBank, the first carrier to offer the Apple iPhone in Japan, set up a private fund last year for global investments in the technology sector, called the Vision Fund, with the potential to grow to as much as $100 billion.

Masayoshi Son, chief executive of SoftBank Group Corp., believes that within 30 years, artificial intelligence will be smarter than the human brain. The Wall Street Journal reports that Son made the prediction at Mobile World Congress, the telecom industry's biggest trade show, which is currently being held in Barcelona, Spain. Not only does Son think that super smart robots will outnumber humans in 30 years, but more than a trillion objects will be connected to the internet. "That is why I'm in a hurry to aggregate cash to invest," he said. SoftBank has made quite a few recent deals, including purchasing British microprocessor designer ARM Holdings PLC for $32 billion, as well as U.S. asset manager Fortress Investment Group PLC for $3.3 billion. Son plans to ramp up the research-and-development funding for ARM, which designs the basic architecture for chips in more than 95 percent of smartphones around the world.