Japan races to back AI startups amid Nvidia processor shortage

TOKYO -- The Japanese government is stepping up efforts to back generative artificial intelligence startups in the country by providing free access to AI computing resources, which are becoming scarce amid the global boom in AI since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT.

Last week, several Japanese AI startups began training their own large language models on Google servers equipped with Nvidia's latest H100 graphics processing units (GPUs). The government initiative, the Generative AI Accelerator Challenge, is funded by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and aims to make it easier for startups to gain access to AI chips.