SoftBank will begin building its AI infrastructure by the end of 2023
Japanese operator SoftBank unveiled plans to invest a total of $138 million in advanced computing infrastructure with the aim of powering its own generative artificial intelligence (AI) model to target Japanese enterprises, local newspaper Nikkei Asia reported.
According to the report, the Japanese carrier will build infrastructure equivalent to a supercomputer, which will be powered by Nvidia’s graphics processing unit for large language models.
The report also stated that the carrier will initially target the Japanese call center market before expanding to other sectors such as finance and healthcare.
As part of the plans, the Japanese operator also will lease its new computing infrastructure to businesses developing their own AI models.
Earlier this year, SoftBank’s president and CEO, Junichi Miyakawa, had announced plans to power data centers in the domestic market using Nvidia’s latest AI chip. The executive highlighted that these data centers will be capable of hosting generative AI, 5G and future 6G systems.
The report also stated that SoftBank will begin building its AI infrastructure by the end of 2023.
SoftBank is already working on a large language model that will power its upcoming generative AI tool, which currently has 1 billion parameters. The company plans to raise the number of these parameters to around 60 billion, the report added.
Earlier this year, SoftBank and Sumitomo Electric announced plans to collaborate with the aim of realizing smart factories using 5G technology, a project which also uses AI-based services.
As part of the collaboration, industrial 5G terminals currently under development by Sumitomo Electric will be offered in 2024 to support a 5G-managed service for companies that telecom operator SoftBank launched earlier this year.
Also, the partners said, they will promote digital transformation of production sites by using artificial intelligence-based video compression and analysis solutions, which are also derived from Sumitomo Electric’s proprietary technology.
Through these collaborative efforts, Sumitomo Electric said it will seek to improve productivity at its own manufacturing facilities.
SoftBank’s “Private 5G” service offers customized 5G networks to meet the various needs of companies and local governments. The service, which is offered by using public 5G equipment and frequencies, allocates optimal network resources depending on customers’ usage by using network slicing which is a feature of 5G standalone (5G SA) commercial networks.
SoftBank and Sumitomo Electric have been conducting joint demonstrations related to 5G-based smart factories since 2019. In 2022, the pair worked on trial in which the movement of workers was captured using a 4K camera installed in a factory. The video was then compressed by AI-based video processing (AVP) — Sumitomo Electric’s proprietary video compression technology — and was transmitted to a cloud server via SoftBank’s 5G network to conduct AI-based video analysis.
The companies said that the use of AVP reduced the amount of data by 88% compared to conventional compression methods, achieving efficient video transmission. “Previously, distant workers whose image size was small could not be detected. The use of video captured by an ultra-high-definition 4K camera improved the accuracy of AI-based video analysis. The worker detection rate in the video improved from 89% to 100%,” they added.