Nvidia to become a big shareholder in Japan's Sakana AI

TOKYO -- U.S. chipmaker Nvidia will invest several billion yen (tens of millions of dollars) in Tokyo-based Sakana AI, a startup co-founded by former Google researchers, and will become a big shareholder, Nikkei has learned.

Sakana AI had been negotiating with several well-known American venture capital firms to receive investment, and now Nvidia will join them. As the race to develop generative AI heats up worldwide, this is an unusual deal in which a Japan-oriented startup and a U.S. semiconductor giant are teaming up.