The founder of Softbank Group has reportedly set his sights on a new venture: a $100 billion AI chip company called Project Izanagi that could one day rival the dominance of AI leaders like Nvidia, Intel and AMD.
According Bloomberg, Masayoshi Son says that $30 billion of the funding needed for Project Izanagi, which will focus on artificial general intelligence (AGI), is expected to come from Softbank, with the remaining $70 billion potentially coming from Middle Eastern investors. However, the specific details of financing and execution are still under wraps and the project may undergo further evolution.
Project Izanagi is expected to work in synergy with Arm, a chip design company in which Softbank has a 90% stake. However, for now it remains a mystery how exactly the two companies will interact.
An impossible dream?
Despite facing several setbacks in his initial investments, Son's fervor for AGI is palpable. He was cited by Bloomberg as he says: “AGI is what every AI expert is looking for. But when you ask them about a detailed definition, a number, the timing, how much computing power, how much smarter AGI is than human intelligence, most of them don't have an answer. I have my own answer: I am convinced that AGI will be real in 10 years.”
The task of building a company that can successfully compete against Nvidia is formidable. Nvidia has a wealth of talented hardware engineers, highly competitive hardware, and a ubiquitous CUDA software stack, which has been evolving for over 16 years.
It makes sense that Son's Project Izanagi AI processors would employ technologies like the instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Arm to give it a head start, but the startup may also choose to look elsewhere. Softbank is one of the companies rumored to be interested in buying Graphcore, the cash-strapped British chip designer.
