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 Chief Executive Officer 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.