TOKYO: Japan’s industry ministry said Friday that it will provide up to 72.5 billion yen in subsidies for five projects to build supercomputers for use in developing artificial intelligence technology.

The ministry aims to promote the domestic development of generative AI systems by improving computing infrastructure at home.

Specifically, the ministry will provide 10.2 billion yen to telecommunications carrier KDDI Corp. and 50.1 billion yen to Sakura Internet Inc. The ministry will also subsidize GMO Internet Group Inc. and startups.

The recipient companies will be required to allow generative AI developers to use the supercomputers for at least three years.

This will be the first time for KDDI to establish large-scale computing infrastructure for AI development.

Computing infrastructure capable of learning and calculating vast amounts of data is necessary for the development of generative AI systems.

Currently, Japan depends heavily on foreign companies, such as US technology giant Microsoft Corp., due to a lack of domestic infrastructure.

JIJI Press