SoftBank plans to invest a total of $960 million by 2025 to develop generative AI
Japanese operator SoftBank plans to invest a total of JPY150 billion ($960 million) by 2025, with the aim of giving its computing facilities the necessary power needed to develop world-class generative artificial intelligence, local newspaper Nikkei reported.
Once this expected investment is completed, SoftBank’s computing power is likely to be among the highest in Japan, as the operator tries to develop a Japanese-language-specific generative AI with world-class performance, the report stated.
The Nikkei report also stated that graphics processing units (GPUs) will be purchased from U.S. chip designer Nvidia. Softbank aims to use the GPUs not only for the company’s own development of generative AI but also to be loaned to other companies.
During 2023, SoftBank had invested JPY20 billion building the computing infrastructure. The additional investment of JPY150 billion will be spent during 2024 and 2025, according to the report.
SoftBank is currently developing a large language model (LLM) as the basis for generative AI. The Japanese telco expects to complete development of a model with 390 billion parameters in fiscal 2024 and will start developing a high-performance model with 1 trillion parameters as early as next year, according to the report.
The report also highlighted that SoftBank is building the data centers needed to offer new services.
In February, Softbank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son said he wanted to raise $100 billion for a new company focused on artificial intelligence microchips, according to Bloomberg.
The venture, dubbed Project Izanagi, is aimed at setting up an AI chip company to complement Softbank’s Arm and to challenge Nvidia’s position in the AI chip market.
Izanagi is the Japanese god of life and creation, giving some sense of the level of importance that Son sees in AGI, which he sometimes refers to as a “singularity”; the last three letters of the name are also AGI.
“Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is what every AI expert is after,” Son said, as reported by Bloomberg. “But when you ask them about a detailed definition, a number, the timing, how much computing power, how much smarter AGI is than the human intelligence, most of them don’t have an answer. […] I have my own answer: I am convinced AGI will be real in 10 years.”
Project Izanagi is reportedly separate from any plans to work with OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman on Altman’s effort to raise $5-$7 trillion to boost global AI chip-making capacity and related infrastructure and processing needs for AI.
Speaking at the SoftBank World corporate conference in October 2023, Son said he believes AGI will be ten times more intelligent than the sum total of all human intelligence.
