NVIDIA has become a benchmark in the Artificial Intelligence sector, with a market share of 80%, leaving a very small share of the pie to AMD, which is several steps behind. However, it appears that in the coming years NVIDIA and AMD won’t be the only GPU makers sharing the market, with Softbank also wanting its share.
Softbank is a Japanese business conglomerate that carries out investments in technology sectors mainly, but not exclusively. According to various sources, Softbank has embarked on a new project to delve into the design and manufacturing of artificial intelligence chips to compete with NVIDIA.
This new project, called Izanagi (god of creation in Japan), aims to raise $100 billion to create the company manufacturing artificial intelligence chips based on ARM architecture. Currently, it already has $41 billion in liquidity and another $70 billion would be added in capitalization rounds that would put it in a good position. Middle East.
Softbank: new competitor to NVIDIA
By 2030, the Middle East wants to become a reference in terms of Artificial Intelligence. The United Arab Emirates already has a minister of AI and where, a few days ago, the boss of NVIDIA gave a conference in front of 4,000 people from more than 150 countries. What initially seemed like just a fad turned out to be revolution in the technological field the most anticipated in decades.
In fact, Warren Buffet, one of the richest people in the world, began to lose interest in companies dedicated to hardware manufacturing (last week he sold 90 million Apple shares) and to investing in AI-related businesses, since this is undoubtedly the technological future and there is still a long way to go. The launch of Sora, OpenAI’s AI for create videos sequences of up to 60 seconds based on a description demonstrate, once again, what an AI is capable of.
Companies wanting to invest in AI need chips specifically designed to train neural networks and currently the only manufacturers offering these solutions are from NVIDIA and AMD. Intel is the latest manufacturer to enter the field of AI through a series of graphics cards that leave much to be desired and that today are not an option, although everything could change in the months to come, without a doubt. the second generation of graphics.
Softbank believes there is still room in the market for another manufacturer. Will he be wrong? During the 40 years of activity of this conglomerate, the company has carried out a large number of risky betsand he has succeeded in most of them, so he has a very precise vision in addition to having very significant financial power, so, if he insists on something, he can achieve it.
For the sake of consumers, we hope that this new project from Sotfbank will not be limited to the creation of GPUs and will also enter the graphics card market, thereby expanding the number of options for users. What is clear is that we will have to wait a few more years to see if Softbank finally becomes an alternative in the manufacturing of GPUs for AI.
