SoftBank buys $676M old Sharp plant for its OpenAI collab in Japan

SoftBank is marching ahead on its ambitions to build out a major AI operation in its home market of Japan, on its own steam and in strategic partnership with others like OpenAI. On Friday, the tech company confirmed it would pay $676 million for factory previously used by Sharp to build LCD panels to convert it into an artificial intelligence data center. SoftBank’s purchase and sale agreement with Sharp includes both the land and buildings of the Sharp Sakai Plant in Osaka, for a price of 100 billion yen ($676 million). This was a necessary early step for SoftBank since data centers are a lynchpin in the massive wave of generative AI sweeping the tech world: substantial data center capacity is needed both to train models and to provision and run subsequent services. When asked if the site is part of its plans to commercialize OpenAI’s models in Japan, a SoftBank spokesperson pointed TechCrunch to its previous announcement regarding a collaboration with OpenAI to deploy an advanced ... Read full article.