The English edition of SoftBank Corp.’s (TOKYO: 9434) Integrated Report for 2024, published on October 31, 2024, is a comprehensive report that not only covers SoftBank’s financial information for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024 (FY2023), but also outlines SoftBank's medium- to long-term growth strategies, ESG strategy, and more.
SoftBank is advancing its technology strategy to realize “Next-generation Social Infrastructure” to support a “society that coexists with AI” and enhance corporate value. As part of this initiative, in August 2023 it launched SB Intuitions Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary to develop homegrown Large Language Models (LLM) specialized for the Japanese language, as well as develop, market and provide generative AI services.
Hironobu Tamba, SoftBank’s Head of Homegrown Generative AI Development and President & CEO of SB Intuitions Corp., spoke in-depth about the background in the report. Below is an excerpt.
Message from the Head of Homegrown Generative AI Development
Laying the foundation for the next leap by building a Japanese-based LLM
Q: What is the mission of SB Intuitions Corp.?
As a wholly owned subsidiary of SoftBank, our mission is to develop technology centered on generative AI. Currently, we are working to complete a multimodal*1 LLM with approximately 390 billion parameters*2 developed using Japanese datasets*3 by the end of FY2024. In the medium- to long-term, we aspire to develop models with approximately 1 trillion parameters.
- *1
An AI system that collects information from two or more different modes of data, such as text, audio, image, video, and sensor information, and processes them in an integrated manner
- *2
An indicator expressing the complexity and learning capacity of a language model
- *3
Collection of data used for training large language models
Q: Why are you working on developing a Japanese-based LLM?
When we look ahead to the future, if generative AI becomes a core part of digital services, I believe having a Japanese-based LLM domestically is crucial. Currently, we rely on overseas companies for the majority of digital services, such as operating systems and cloud services. The digital trade deficit is growing each year and reached ¥5.5 trillion in 2023. If all the commonly used generative AI also comes from overseas, I fear that this deficit will continue to grow as a result of paying license fees and other related expenses. Through the LLM we are developing, we hope to create a structure that keeps the national wealth within Japan while contributing to the growth of SoftBank.
Over the space of four pages, in the report Tamba discusses the advantages of a Japanese-based LLM, how it can be monetized, his future outlook and more from his perspective as President & CEO of SB Intuitions Corp.
Tamba’s entire message can be found here, starting on page 48.
SoftBank Integrated Report 2024
Every year, SoftBank publishes an Integrated Report, a comprehensive document that includes information on its vision, medium- to long-term growth strategies, value creation processes, materiality, and financial and non-financial information.
(Posted on November 28, 2024, Original Article Published on October 4, 2024)
by SoftBank News Editors
