"Science and Technology Innovation Board**" on February 15 (Reporter Ao Jin).Masayoshi Son and Jensen Huang have teamed up to develop AI businesses.
A person familiar with the matter revealed to ** that SoftBank and Nvidia are forming an AI industry alliance to improve wireless services through artificial intelligence technology. The alliance is called AI-RAN, and other members include Ericsson and Nokia, among others.
The alliance is part of a plan to officially announce a partnership between SoftBank and Nvidia. In August 2023, SoftBank's telecom subsidiary and Nvidia announced that they were working together to build a platform for generative AI and 5G 6G applications, which will be based on Nvidia's GH200 superchip, and SoftBank will launch a new AI data transmission center across Japan.
It can be seen that Masayoshi Son, who once lagged behind the new wave of artificial intelligence development in this round, and SoftBank, which he is in charge of, are making all-round efforts to try to seize the highland of AI science and technology innovation again.
The cooperation is aimed at communication services
Based on the cooperation content officially announced by SoftBank and Nvidia, as well as the introduction of the AI-RAN alliance, the hand-in-hand between SoftBank and Nvidia is mainly aimed at the communication business segment of SoftBank Group.
It is reported that the purpose of the AI-RAN alliance is to develop a technology that can process data on mobile phone transmission towers without relying on data centers. Decentralized data transmission will allow the AI services provided by mobile phones to be upgraded. At the same time, this technology will also automate the operation of base station networks. Help the network avoid latency by enabling the base station to automatically adapt to changes in data volumes.
Currently, SoftBank operates about 200,000 mobile phone base stations across Japan, and this new technology is attracting attention as a new way to utilize these base stations.
In August 2023, when SoftBank and Nvidia officially announced their cooperation to develop a platform for generative AI and 5G 6G applications, Junichi Miyagawa, CEO of SoftBank's telecommunications subsidiary, publicly stated that SoftBank will provide a new generation of social infrastructure for a highly digital Japan. The cooperation with NVIDIA will enable SoftBank's infrastructure to reach a very high level of operation through the application of artificial intelligence technology and the optimization of RAN. "We expect it will also help us reduce our energy consumption and create a network of interconnected data centers that can be used to share resources and host a range of generative AI applications. ”
According to other sources, there are about 10 member companies in the above-mentioned AI-RAN alliance, in addition to SoftBank and NVIDIA, Ericsson and Nokia will also be among them.
SoftBank regains its AI ambitions
In fact, Masayoshi Son has always been concerned about artificial intelligence, and the much-watched SoftBank Vision ** was the first to announce that the focus of investment was in the field of AI.
SoftBank Vision Phase II stated at the fundraising stage that the purpose of the AI revolution is to accelerate the development of the AI revolution by investing in market-leading, technology-enabled growth companies.
However, in the subsequent development, SoftBank's vision** did not all in artificial intelligence, and most of the funds were actually invested in start-ups that had little to do with artificial intelligence. Especially the generative artificial intelligence that leads the new round of AI development, SoftBank has not bet on "explosive" companies such as OpenAI.
SoftBank has invested in only one of the 26 generative AI startups valued at more than $1 billion, according to the latest data from venture capital database Pitchbook. The company, Dialpad, is an AI unified communications and contact center platform for enterprises.
It is worth mentioning that DialPad is not an AI company in the full sense of the word, and its main business is to provide customers with a variety of AI-driven services.
In fact, many of the AI companies invested by SoftBank Vision** belong to this category, and they do not use AI technology as their main business content, but empower their main business through AI. Including WeWork, which is currently in the midst of bankruptcy, Son has also said that he will use AI to analyze how people communicate and decide on sales strategies based on this.
At the moment, SoftBank's biggest takeaway from AI comes from ARM. Arm's main business is to license the design and construction of chips that drive smartphones and PCs, and a small part of its revenue comes from chips for supercomputers for AI data processing, and this business segment is growing rapidly. Arm's offering price is $51, while its stock price is trading at $126 as of today**$4 shares.
At present, Son intends to increase SoftBank's investment in the field of AI. In June last year, he revealed that he used ChatGPT frequently and had close ties with OpenAI's management.
Some investors also analyzed the reporter of the "Science and Technology Innovation Board**", "SoftBank has made some gains in its investment in ARM, and it is likely to accelerate its investment layout after enriching its ammunition and catch up with this wave of AI again." ”
SoftBank itself is also developing generative AI applications. At the results conference held on February 7, Junichi Miyagawa said that SoftBank's self-developed generative AI computing platform and large language model are currently making good progress.