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
