Masayoshi Son, Chairman of Japan's SoftBank Group (68, pictured), met with President Lee Jae-myung on the 5th. Chairman Son proposed a plan to establish an 'ARM School' in Korea to train 1,400 semiconductor design talents over the next five years.

ARM, in which SoftBank is the major shareholder, is a British semiconductor design company that virtually monopolizes the design of semiconductors for mobile devices worldwide. The ARM School is expected to become a foundation for Korea to have top-level artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor design personnel, beyond mere educational cooperation.

Chairman Son was born in Saga Prefecture, Japan, as a third-generation Korean-Japanese. He grew up in poverty under a grandfather who was a mine worker and a father who made a living through fish trading and restaurant management. Despite the difficult environment, he nurtured a desire for success. After dropping out of high school, he moved to the United States alone and studied at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), where he demonstrated his business acumen. Notably, he earned money through a video game import business during his studies and later proved his business capabilities early by selling a pocket computer he developed to a large corporation.

In 1981, he founded SoftBank in Japan. He started with software distribution and expanded the business extensively into publishing, exhibitions, media, and information technology (IT). He led a new internet era in Japan, which had not been experienced before, by establishing Yahoo Japan in 1996.

Success was not the only experience for Chairman Son. In the early 2000s, SoftBank faced a major crisis due to the dot-com bubble burst. He did not retreat. He entered the telecommunications market by acquiring Japan Telecom and Vodafone Japan in large-scale deals, and in 2007, he achieved a significant operating profit, marking a successful comeback. A notable anecdote involves his meeting with Jack Ma, founder of China's Alibaba, in 2000, where he decided to invest $20 million in Alibaba within six minutes. That investment returned 3,000 times the profit in 14 years, laying the foundation for SoftBank Group's venture fund, the 'Vision Fund,' which invests in world-renowned technology companies.

In the AI era, Chairman Son emphasized securing energy, data centers, and strengthening system semiconductor design capabilities as key tasks for Korea. While highly evaluating Korea's excellent semiconductor manufacturing capabilities, he identified structural issues such as a lack of semiconductor design personnel to support the AI era and limitations in AI data center supply. At a time when Korea needs to shift the paradigm of future industries, Chairman Son's visit to Korea seems to clearly highlight the necessity of that transition.

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