SoftBank Corp. Further Strengthens its AI Computing Platform by Installing Approximately 4,000 NVIDIA Hopper GPUs

To enable a society that co-exists with AI, SoftBank Corp. (TOKYO: 9434) is continuing to make progress on its goal to build and provide different types of AI infrastructure in Japan. On October 31, SoftBank announced it finished installing approximately 4,000 NVIDIA Hopper GPUs in its Japan top-level* AI computing platform.

SoftBank began operating its AI computing platform equipped with approximately 2,000 NVIDIA Ampere GPUs in September 2023, delivering 0.7 exaflops, a supercomputer measure of performance. With this installation of roughly 4,000 NVIDIA Hopper GPUs, the AI platform’s total computing performance was boosted to approximately 4.7 exaflops with approximately 6,000 GPUs installed in total. SoftBank plans to further strengthen the AI computing platform’s performance by deploying an NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD with NVIDIA DGX B200 systems by increasing the total number of GPUs to approximately 10,000 by the end of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2026 (FY2025). Furthermore, by subsequently installing additional GPUs, SoftBank aims to achieve a Japan top-level* total compute capability of 25.7 exaflops.

This AI computing platform will first be utilized by SB Intuitions, SoftBank’s subsidiary dedicated to developing homegrown large language models (LLMs) specialized for the Japanese language. The AI computing platform enhancement will help speed up this initiative to develop LLMs.

In addition to its own group companies, SoftBank plans to provide this AI computing infrastructure as a service to companies and research institutions based in Japan. By providing computational resources that can be utilized by a wide range of generative AI developers, SoftBank is aiming to help establish infrastructure for development, and strengthen the framework for providing AI-related services.

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, known as METI, is supporting the strengthening of computing resources, and announced it certified SoftBank’s AI computing platform as a “Cloud Program,” which designates important materials based on its Economic Security Promotion Act.

For more information, see this press release.

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One of the largest computing platforms in Japan for LLMs learning. Based on publicly available information as of October 31, 2024, and SoftBank Corp. research.