Nvidia's hot new AI chip has its first customer
Nvidia’s (NVDA) new artificial intelligence chip has its first customer, which plans to build the most powerful AI supercomputer in Japan.
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%.
