the world by building robots with biomechanical abilities
superior to those of humans. (SoftBank bought the company
from Alphabet for an undisclosed sum.) Raibert brought with
him Spot Mini, a four-legged robot that promptly started
demonstrating its locomotor skills. “Masa, I think you may
have to back up because you’re in the way,” Raibert warned Son.
“We don’t have it detecting people yet.” Raibert finished by
stating his belief that “robots will be bigger than the internet”,
and thanked SoftBank for backing him up. Son thanked
him in return and said: “We’re going to change the world
together. We’re going to put lots of AI into robots.”
Next was Greg Wyler, founder of OneWeb, who pointed out
that, for all the talk about a hyperconnected future, the reality
is that 54 per cent of the planet had no access to the internet.
He detailed his plan to deploy 900 non - geostationary satellites
that would ensure the remotest corners of the world would
have access to the internet by 2027. As he finished, Wyler
thanked SoftBank for its support. “We’re going to change the
world, we’re going to connect everybody into this internet,”
Son responded as he accompanied him off stage.
Artificial intelligence – and its accessory components of
ubiquitous data, high-speed connections and autonomous
robots – was the common denominator between the speakers
that day: Helmy Eltoukhy, chief executive of Guardant Health,
wanted to conquer cancer with data; Matt Barnard, founder
of indoor farming platform Plenty, was using machine
learning to grow plants in an optimised environment; and
Bill Huang, the entrepreneur behind startup Cloud Minds,Jean Liu, president
of DiDi. SoftBank and
DiDi have partnered
to launch a taxi-hailing
service in Japan