SoftBank Corp. announced that it has completed the installation of around 4,000 NVIDIA Hopper GPUs in its AI computing platform in Japan. This platform is currently being expanded.
In September 2023, SoftBank started operating an AI computing platform with a computing power of 0.7 exaflops, which had about 2,000 NVIDIA Ampere GPUs. With the addition of approximately 4,000 NVIDIA Hopper GPUs, the total computing power of the AI platform has increased to around 4.7 exaflops, with a total of about 6,000 GPUs installed.
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From the current fiscal year ending on March 31, 2025 (FY2024) to FY2025, SoftBank plans to enhance the performance of the AI computing platform by deploying an NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD with NVIDIA DGX B200 systems, increasing the total number of GPUs to about 10,000. Subsequently, by adding more GPUs, the goal is to achieve a total compute capability of 25.7 exaflops (EF), reaching top-level status in Japan.
Initially, this AI computing platform will be used by SB Intuitions Corp., a subsidiary of SoftBank dedicated to developing large language models (LLMs) tailored for the Japanese language. SB Intuitions aims to create LLMs with around 390 billion parameters, supporting multiple modalities within FY2024. The enhancement of the AI computing platform will accelerate the development of LLMs.
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SoftBank is dedicated to creating various types of social infrastructure to promote a society that coexists with AI. The construction of SoftBank's AI computing platform has been certified for supply assurance by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) as a "Cloud Program" under the Economic Security Promotion Act.
By offering computational resources for a wide range of generative AI (GenAI) developers, SoftBank will help establish development infrastructure and strengthen service provision in Japan. Apart from using the AI computing platform within its group companies, SoftBank plans to offer the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform to companies and research institutions in Japan.
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