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Masayoshi Son's AI ambitions soar with Nvidia’s cutting-edge chips for its Japanese telecom units

Japanese conglomerate SoftBank will be the first recipient of Nvidia's latest Blackwell chips for its supercomputer. This collaboration highlights SoftBank’s latest move to leverage artificial intelligence to get ahead in the AI boom. California chip designer Nvidia made the announcement, saying this was because of the strategic relationship between SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang as global demand for high-powered AI chips is at an all-time high.

Nvidia has revealed that SoftBank Corp. plans to pack its latest-generation Grace Blackwell chips inside a new-generation supercomputer. Such a development is a landmark moment for both companies, and it was announced at an AI event hosted by Nvidia in Tokyo. Both Huang and Son appeared on stage for a “fireside chat” that would feature their relationship. Huang recalled that Son once offered to lend him the capital to buy Nvidia. According to a Reuters report, the offer had been offered so long ago that Huang frequently joked, “He wanted to lend me money to buy Nvidia. All of it. Now I regret not taking it.”

Son's proposed investment in Nvidia came after SoftBank acquired the British chip designer Arm, which Nvidia later tried to acquire from SoftBank several years later. However, the attempted acquisition faced regulatory hurdles and eventually collapsed. Unfazed by it, Nvidia has risen in recent years from a gaming graphics chip provider to world leadership in high-value AI-driven computing technologies.

Owing to AI’s booming market, SoftBank has made this strategic focus on AI. The conglomerate recently invested in OpenAI and bought a stake in chip startup Graphcore as part of a broader effort to capture AI opportunities. However, this comes with recent financial struggles. Son's pivot follows the company's unspectacular performance on several high-profile ventures including WeWork, met with mixed results. Son is known for ambitious, often unconventional investments he also gets ahead of the curve when it comes to observing technology trends; he took his first stake in Alibaba early. He's focusing now on building SoftBank's AI capabilities.

Nvidia's new Blackwell chip is the most important design yet to be brought into the market in this fiercely competitive AI chip war. The market currently involves continuous rapid endeavours in the race to produce high-power processors. Huang's decision to provide SoftBank with the priority right to utilize these chips tells of the trust that Nvidia has in SoftBank's vision to innovate.

This deal between SoftBank and Nvidia speaks of two firms that are in a promising relationship moving forward with mutual visions towards AI, hence positioning both in a pivotal position as the demand for AI infrastructure picks up.