[NEWS] Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry grants 72.5 billion yen subsidy to KDDI, Sakura Internet, and others for AI supercomputer development

On the 19th, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry decided to subsidize five companies, including KDDI, with a total of 72.5 billion yen to promote the domestic development of supercomputers necessary for AI development.

Currently, generative AI that automatically creates text and images, such as ChatGPT, is rapidly spreading, and the need for it is expected to increase further in the future.

However, the United States and China are currently ahead of Japan in terms of AI, and Japan is lagging behind globally. High-performance computers are required for AI development, but there are currently few of them in Japan.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry seems to have decided to support the development of supercomputers by Japanese companies, stating that the development of AI is important from the perspective of economic security. In addition to KDDI, five companies, including Sakura Internet, GMO Internet Group, startup RUTILEA, and HiReso, are expected to be eligible for the subsidy.

According to the announcement, KDDI will receive approximately 10.2 billion yen in subsidies, Sakura Internet approximately 50.1 billion yen, GMO Internet Group approximately 1.9 billion yen, RUTILEA approximately 2.5 billion yen, and Hi-Res approximately 7.7 billion yen.

The five companies will procure GPUs (image processing semiconductors) from the US semiconductor giant NVIDIA to develop supercomputers.

METI will impose a condition that AI development companies will be able to use supercomputers for at least three years.

Supercomputers that can process huge amounts of data are essential for the development of generative AI. Currently, cloud services from Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are mainly used, and the challenge is to build a unique Japanese AI development environment that does not depend on overseas companies.

On the 19th, following the news of the AI ​​subsidy, Sakura Internet's stock price temporarily reached a limit high of 6,190 yen, up 1,000 yen from the previous trading day. Buyers are expecting the METI subsidy to boost revenue.

Reference: Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
Image: Shutterstock

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