SoftBank Secures First Nvidia Blackwell Chips for Japan's Most Powerful AI Supercomputer

SoftBank Becomes First To Acquire New Nvidia Chips Towards Supercomputer

SoftBank's Japanese telecom unit is set to receive the first Nvidia chips featuring the latest Blackwell design for its supercomputer, announced Nvidia at a Tokyo event on Wednesday featuring Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and SoftBank Group CEO Son, as reported by Reuters. The firm also plans to utilize the Grace Blackwell chips for a further computer. This move aligns with Masayoshi Son's strategy to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom.

SoftBank to Get First New Nvidia Chips for Japan Supercomputer

SoftBank Group Corp. will be the first Nvidia Corp. customer to build a supercomputer based on the chipmaker's new Blackwell design, a move to meet growing demand in a country eager to catch up in artificial intelligence. SoftBank's telecom unit plans to build Japan's most powerful AI supercomputer to support a wide range of local services, the two companies said Wednesday. That computer will be based on Nvidia's DGX B200 product, which combines computer processors with so-called AI accelerator chips. A follow-up effort will feature Grace Blackwell, a more advanced version.

SoftBank to get first new Nvidia chips for Japan supercomputer

SoftBank Group Corp. will be the first Nvidia Corp. customer to build a supercomputer based on the chipmaker's new Blackwell design, a move to meet growing demand in a country eager to catch up in artificial intelligence. SoftBank's telecom unit plans to build Japan's most powerful AI supercomputer to support a wide range of local services, the two companies said Wednesday. That computer will be based on Nvidia's DGX B200 product, which combines computer processors with so-called AI accelerator chips. A follow-up effort will feature Grace Blackwell, a more advanced version. Nvidia's chips have become a prized commodity for the world's biggest tech companies, which use the components to develop and run AI models. The process requires software to be bombarded with data -- something accelerator chips are especially adept at handling. The announcement indicates that SoftBank has secured a favorable spot in line for Nvidia chips. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced the new Blackwell lineup earlier this year, but production snags slowed the rollout. Though Huang has said that supplies will be plentiful once manufacturing ramps up, customers have been eager to get their hands on the first new chips. Huang spoke in Tokyo early Wednesday at Nvidia's AI Summit. The US company has been crisscrossing the globe to host such events, promoting what it calls the new industrial revolution. Events in India and now Japan are aimed at broadening the deployment of AI systems to nation-based efforts and lessening Nvidia's reliance on a few large US customers. In addition to the new computer and the plan for a second, telecom unit SoftBank Corp. is also going to use Nvidia gear to provide AI services over cellular networks. Traditional hardware, based on custom chips that are designed to maximize mobile data traffic, aren't optimal for new AI services. This will "result in an AI grid that runs across Japan," Huang said. New AI-RANs, or AI radio access networks, will be better-suited to remote robotics, autonomous vehicle support and powering other services, he said. They'll also require less electricity. The telecom unit, which operates the country's third biggest wireless carrier, will begin testing the network with partners Fujitsu Ltd. and International Business Machines Corp.'s Red Hat.

SoftBank plans first supercomputer with Nvidia Blackwell chips

SoftBank Group will be the first to build a supercomputer with chips using Nvidia's new Blackwell design, a demonstration of the company's ambitions to catch up on AI. SoftBank's telecom unit plans to build Japan's most powerful AI supercomputer to support a wide range of local services, the two companies said. That computer will be based on Nvidia's DGX B200 product, which combines computer processors with so-called AI accelerator chips. A follow-up effort will feature Grace Blackwell, a more advanced version. Shares of SoftBank, Japan's No. 3 wireless carrier, reversed losses and rose 1.5% Wednesday. SoftBank Group, which comprises the conglomerate's investment teams, fell as much as 3.3%.

Japan's SoftBank to receive of NVIDIA's first DGX B200 system: for first AI 5G telecom telecom

Japan's SoftBank is the first to receive NVIDIA's new Blackwell GPU design for its AI supercomputer, with plans to also use Grace Blackwell chips to "further its supercomputer" says NVIDIA. In an AI event held in Tokyo, Japan on Wednesday, both SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang were in attendance. The two CEOs held a "fireside chat" at the event, with Jensen telling a story that Son once offered to lend him money to buy NVIDIA, as its value wasn't understood in the market at the time. Jensen said, laughing: "He wanted to lend me money to buy NVIDIA. All of it. Now I regret not taking it". The SoftBank CEO made an offer to Jensen a month before the Japanese giant acquired chip designer Arm, with the Japanese billionaire later building and selling a stake in NVIDIA and the attempted the sale of Arm to NVIDIA which saw regulatory issues everywhere. In the end, we know the success of NVIDIA as it has become the world's clear leader in AI GPU technology.

SoftBank To Build Japan's Largest AI Supercomputer With NVIDIA's Blackwell AI Chips

SoftBank is building Japan's first AI supercomputer with NVIDIA's Blackwell AI chips as the firm prepares to join the AI bandwagon. The NVIDIA and SoftBank tales shouldn't be left untouched, given that SoftBank's CEO, Masayoshi Son, has a history of changing his "investment stances." A prime example is how SoftBank decided to sell a stake in NVIDIA quite early, before the AI hype, and if the firm were to "hold" their respective shares, they would now be worth a whopping $178 billion. But now, SoftBank has adopted a bullish stance towards AI, as the firm is determined to bring about an AI revolution in Japan. SoftBank is all set to build Japan's most powerful AI supercomputer, based on NVIDIA's B200 AI accelerators. The firm plans to transition towards Grace Blackwell chips in the future, but for now, SoftBank plans to use the AI supercomputer to facilitate domestic AI developments, along with using NVIDIA's hardware to integrate AI into cellular services, which is indeed something innovative. NVIDIA's CEO says that this ambition will essentially "will result in an AI grid that runs across Japan", replacing conventional cellular networks. NVIDIA's Blackwell architecture isn't only demanded by tech giants alone, but multiple countries are in the pursuit of building their computing capabilities based on Team Green's newest architecture, which is why Blackwell's demand is so explosive. Apart from SoftBank, Japan plans to invest $26 billion in domestic chip production capacity to support the country's AI ambitions, which shows that technology's importance is growing rapidly with time. SoftBank's decision to jump onto the AI bandwagon might be a bit late, but with the key relations Son holds with NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang, both parties can certainly reach a progressive agreement, one that might put SoftBank and its subsidiaries in a position of leverage. Interestingly, Jensen "joked" about SoftBank selling its 4.9% stake in NVIDIA early, but both personalities remained optimistic about the future of AI in Japan.

Softbank plans to build first Nvidia Blackwell-based AI supercomputer using x86 DGX B200 servers

SoftBank Group plans to build the industry's first Nvidia Blackwell-based AI supercomputer, according to an announcement at Nvidia's AI Summit in Tokyo this week. This announcement confirms SoftBank's AI ambitions, which have been rumored for some time. Interestingly, the supercomputer will use x86 CPU-based DGX B200 servers, not Arm-based processors. SoftBank's s telecom arm will build an AI supercomputer based on Nvidia's DGX B200 servers, featuring x86 processors and eight B200 GPU modules per server. SoftBank plans to adopt the Grace Blackwell platform, which combines Arm-based Grace CPUs and Blackwell AI GPUs, eventually (it's unclear when). Neither Nvidia nor SoftBank disclosed how many B200 processors the Japanese company will purchase -- merely that it will get "a lot of them." Elon Musk's companies Tesla and xAI are deploying tens of thousands of Nvidia processors to train their latest AI models, so SoftBank will need to be somewhere in that ballpark if it wants to compete. But getting enough Nvidia GPUs will be hard, as virtually all global high-tech companies currently need them. Beyond supercomputers, SoftBank's telecom unit plans to integrate Nvidia's AI technology into Japan's mobile networks to create what Huang described as an 'AI grid' across the nation. A significant feature of this rollout will be the deployment of AI radio access networks (AI-RANs), which will use less energy than traditional RAN hardware. Such RANs are said to be a better fit for innovative services, such as autonomous vehicles and remote robotics, and will repurpose the communications network as a nationwide AI infrastructure. SoftBank's telecom division will be trialing the AI-enhanced network in collaboration with Fujitsu and IBM subsidiary Red Hat. Nvidia and SoftBank claim the upcoming supercomputer will be the first Blackwell-based AI supercomputer, but this may not be technically true. Microsoft is already testing Blackwell-based machines, and is expected to be the first company to deploy them. But perhaps SoftBank will be the first company to deploy DGX B200-based servers. It will take some time before Microsoft optimizes its software for Nvidia Blackwell, so don't expect the company to roll out a wide range of services powered by Nvidia's latest GPUs overnight. After a delay involving an Nvidia B100/B200 design flaw, which was discovered and promptly fixed earlier this year, the final revision of B100/B200 entered mass production in late October. As a result, the first batch of these processors isn't expected to arrive until late Jan. 2025. Nvidia revealed that, in order to meet the high demand for Blackwell GPUs from leading cloud providers such as AWS, Google, and Microsoft, it will need to start shipping some of the early low-yield Blackwell processors in 2024; it's not clear how many of these GPUs will be delivered to datacenters throughout the year.

Nvidia's hot new AI chip has its first customer

How AI is helping advertisers pinpoint exactly who you are and what you want The chipmaker is collaborating with Japan's SoftBank Group to build an AI supercomputer, which will use chips from Nvidia's new Blackwell platform, the companies announced on Wednesday at Nvidia's AI Summit Japan. SoftBank will be the first to receive Nvidia's DGX B200 systems to build the Nvidia DGX SuperPOD supercomputer. The supercomputer will feature Nvidia software and networking and will be used for SoftBank's generative AI development. "With your support, we are creating the largest AI data center here in Japan," SoftBank Group chief executive Masayoshi Son said. "We should provide this platform to many of those researchers, the students, the startups, ... so that they have a better access [to] much more compute." Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said the supercomputer is only part of the collaboration between the chipmaker and the investment management company. SoftBank is also planning to build another supercomputer with Nvidia "to run extremely compute-intensive workloads." The next supercomputer is based on Nvidia's Grace Blackwell platform. "Japan has a long history of pioneering technological innovations with global impact," Huang said, adding that with SoftBank's investment in Nvidia's technology, "Japan is leaping into the AI industrial revolution to become a global leader, driving a new era of growth across the telecommunications, transportation, robotics and healthcare industries in ways that will greatly benefit humankind in the age of AI." Nvidia's shares were up around 0.2% after the market opened on Wednesday morning, while SoftBank's Japan-listed shares were down almost 2.9%.

Nvidia's Huang Says SoftBank to Get New Chips for Japan Supercomputer

Speaking at Nvidia's AI Summit in Tokyo, Jensen Huang announced that SoftBank will build Japan's most powerful AI supercomputer using the chipmaker's latest designs. In addition to the new computer, SoftBank is also going to use Nvidia gear to provide AI services over cellular networks. "This is just a magnificent development," Huang said on Wednesday. (Source: Bloomberg)

Nvidia And SoftBank To Build Japan's Top AI Supercomputer On Blackwell Platform -- Jensen Huang Says Tokyo Is 'Leaping Into The AI Industrial Revolution' - NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), SoftBank Group (OTC:SFTBF)

Nvidia Corp NVDA and SoftBank Group SFTBF SFTBY announced a partnership on Tuesday to establish Japan's most powerful artificial intelligence supercomputer, marking a significant step in the country's push to become a global AI powerhouse. What Happened: The collaboration unveiled at the Nvidia AI Summit Japan, centers on SoftBank's implementation of Nvidia's advanced Blackwell platform and plans to utilize the Nvidia Grace Blackwell platform for future supercomputing initiatives. "Japan has a long history of pioneering technological innovations with global impact," said Jensen Huang, Nvidia's founder and CEO. "With SoftBank's significant investment in Nvidia's full-stack AI, Omniverse and 5G AI-RAN platforms, Japan is leaping into the AI industrial revolution." SoftBank has successfully piloted the world's first combined AI and 5G telecom network using Nvidia's AI Aerial platform. This innovation could potentially generate billions in new revenue for global telecom operators by transforming base stations from cost centers into AI revenue-producing assets. "Countries and regions worldwide are accelerating the adoption of AI for social and economic growth," said Junichi Miyakawa, SoftBank's president and CEO. "Through our long collaboration with Nvidia, SoftBank is leading this transformation from the forefront." The partnership includes several key initiatives: SoftBank will receive the world's first Nvidia DGX B200 systems for its new DGX SuperPOD supercomputer Development of an AI marketplace using Nvidia AI Enterprise software Implementation of Nvidia's AI-RAN solution, which SoftBank estimates can reduce power consumption by 40% compared to traditional 5G infrastructure See Also: Greg Brockman Returns To Work At ChatGPT's Parent Company: 'Back To Building OpenAI' Why It Matters: The collaboration represents a strategic shift for both companies, with SoftBank estimating potential returns of up to 219% for each AI-RAN server added to its infrastructure. The company plans to begin global deployment of its AI-RAN solution, dubbed "AITRAS," in 2026. This partnership follows SoftBank's recent moves in the AI sector, including its $960 million investment commitment for developing Japanese-language AI models and its acquisition of UK-based chipmaker Graphcore. The initiative is expected to accelerate Japan's position in the global AI race while providing new opportunities for telecommunications, transportation, robotics, and healthcare industries. Read Next: Cathie Wood-Led Ark Sees Boost For Bitcoin, Crypto Under Trump Administration, Says IPO Window For Circle, Kraken Could Reopen Image Via Shutterstock Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs