AIST, one of the country’s largest public research organisations, to bolster its capabilities with a new AI supercomputer built by Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) and powered by thousands of NVIDIA H200 GPUs and NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand.
Enhancing Japan’s AI sovereignty and strengthening its research and development capabilities, Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) will integrate thousands of NVIDIA H200 Tensor Core GPUs into its AI Bridging Cloud Infrastructure 3.0 supercomputer (ABCI 3.0). The HPE Cray XD system will feature NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking for superior performance and scalability.
ABCI 3.0 is the latest iteration of Japan’s large-scale Open AI Computing Infrastructure designed to advance AI R&D. This collaboration underlines Japan’s commitment to advancing its AI capabilities and fortifying its technological independence.
“In August 2018, we launched ABCI, the world’s first large-scale open AI computing infrastructure,” said AIST Executive Officer Yoshio Tanaka. “Building on our experience over the past several years managing ABCI, we’re now upgrading to ABCI 3.0. In collaboration with NVIDIA and HPE we aim to develop ABCI 3.0 into a computing infrastructure that will advance further research and development capabilities for generative AI in Japan.”
“As generative AI prepares to catalyse global change, it’s crucial to rapidly cultivate research and development capabilities within Japan,” said AIST Solutions Head of ABCI Operations Hirotaka Ogawa. “I’m confident that this major upgrade of ABCI in our collaboration with NVIDIA and HPE will enhance ABCI’s leadership in domestic industry and academia, propelling Japan towards global competitiveness in AI development and serving as the bedrock for future innovation.”
ABCI 3.0: A New Era for Japanese AI Research and Development
ABCI 3.0 is constructed and operated by AIST, its business subsidiary, AIST Solutions, and its system integrator, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).
The ABCI 3.0 project follows support from Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, known as METI, for strengthening its computing resources through the Economic Security Fund and is part of a broader $1 billion initiative by METI that includes both ABCI efforts and investments in cloud AI computing.
NVIDIA is closely collaborating with METI on research and education following a visit last year by company founder and CEO, Jensen Huang, who met with political and business leaders, including Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, to discuss the future of AI, Huang pledged to collaborate on research, particularly in generative AI, robotics and quantum computing, to invest in AI startups and provide product support, training and education on AI.
During his visit, Huang emphasised that “AI factories” — next-generation data centres designed to handle the most computationally intensive AI tasks — are crucial for turning vast amounts of data into intelligence.
“The AI factory will become the bedrock of modern economies across the world,” Huang said during a meeting with the Japanese press in December.
With its ultra-high-density data centre and energy-efficient design, ABCI provides a robust infrastructure for developing AI and big data applications.
The system is expected to come online by the end of this year and offer state-of-the-art AI research and development resources. It will be housed in Kashiwa, near Tokyo.
