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According to reports, Apple would hope to gain insight on emerging technologies

Tech giant Apple has been reported by the Wall Street Journal to be in talks with SoftBank to invest up to US$1 billion to the SoftBank Vision Fund.

Both companies were not available to comment on the report, and status of the talks “could not be learned.” But according to the Journal, Apple would hope to gain insight on emerging technologies.

Dubbed as the world’s largest tech fund, the Vision Fund was announced by SoftBank in October. SoftBank is investing at least US$25 billion in the fund; it has also been in talks with Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (PIF) for a potential up to US$45 billion investment over the next five years.

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Controversies

The SoftBank Vision Fund itself is not without controversy.

Reuters reported that some analysts are concerned with the company’s latest moves in tech investment as it currently wrestles with a JPY13.7 trillion (US$119 billion) debt pile.

Another controversy also involved US President-elect Donald Trump, who had lobbied for half of the fund to be invested in the country.

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As Quartz pointed out, the end goals of the Vision Fund investment is to “bring about the Singularity … as posited by futurist and writer Ray Kurzweil, is when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence and machines run our everyday lives,” involving as little human as possible in the process.

The move is seen as a major contradiction to Trump’s promise of “bringing jobs back to America.”

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