SoftBank held talks with Intel about producing an artificial intelligence chip to compete with Nvidia but the plan foundered after the US chipmaker struggled to meet the Japanese group’s requirements.
Negotiations to partner with Intel, which have not previously been reported, would have accelerated SoftBank’s efforts to combine the chip designs of its crown jewel Arm with the production expertise of its latest acquisition, Graphcore, to create a rival to Nvidia’s market-leading AI chips, said people familiar with the matter.
SoftBank chief executive Masayoshi Son plans to invest billions of dollars in an attempt to put the Japanese group at the centre of the AI boom. His ambitious scheme, which he has pitched to Big Tech companies, encompasses chip production and software through to providing power for the data centres that would house its processors.