Masayoshi Son: Nuclear Fusion Could Become Key to Powering Future AI Data Centers

SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son said at the SoftBank World annual event in Tokyo on July 14 that as electricity demand from AI data centers continues to rise, nuclear fusion technology is expected to become one of the most realistic power solutions in the near future.

Son believes that most of the current electricity demand from data centers will still be met by natural gas, but this landscape could change over the next 15 years. He predicted that by 2040, global data center capacity demand will reach 3 terawatts, with nuclear fusion playing a significant role. He said at the event that fusion will become a major source of a cheaper, cleaner, and safer new form of energy on Earth, and asked rhetorically: “Is it really appropriate to use so much natural gas for power generation right now? I believe that 15 years from now, fusion will take its place.”

Nuclear fusion is the process that powers the sun and other stars. In theory, it can provide vast amounts of energy with low carbon emissions, produce less radioactive waste than traditional nuclear fission, and carries no risk of chain reactions. Since the 2011 accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, Son has opposed reliance on traditional nuclear energy, yet he expressed clear expectations for fusion technology on this occasion.

In recent years, global fusion technology companies have attracted increasing investment, with some enterprises moving from experimental research to the prototype manufacturing stage. The U.S. Department of Energy has also set a goal to promote the technology's large-scale application by the mid-2030s. However, for fusion to truly become a viable energy source, it still needs to overcome numerous technical and economic hurdles.