Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Japan should build its own artificial intelligence instead of importing the technology to best leverage the country’s unique language and data.
The US chip giant sees opportunities in Asia as countries build out their own “sovereign AI.”
“The data of Japan, the language is very specific, the culture is very specific, and there is no reason to allow some other third party to harvest that data, create an AI, and then import it back to Japan,” Huang said at a press briefing on March 19 at Nvidia’s GTC conference in San Jose, California.
“You should build it yourself,” he added.
Japan’s aging society, moreover, has made the country more aware of the importance of productivity, and AI is the “best way we know to improve productivity,” Huang said, something that should further motivate Japan to invest in building its own AI.
“The energy of Japan I find really invigorating right now,” he said.
Japan aims to develop generative AI to speed up scientific discoveries in medicine and materials, Nikkei reported last summer, while more recently the government’s Generative AI Accelerator Challenge aims to give startups better access to AI resources.
Japan is not the only country in Asia that is investing in building its own AI.
In March, India approved a INR 103 billion (USD 1.25 billion) government investment plan to help the country build its computing infrastructure and develop large language models. That includes plans to procure 10,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) within the next 18–24 months.
“If India is buying GPUs for AI … Nvidia is very interested. We are open for business,” Huang said on March 19.
This article first appeared on Nikkei Asia. It has been republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with Nikkei.