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Sharp, KDDI to turn old factory into Nvidia-powered AI data center

OSAKA, Jun 04 (Nikkei) - Japanese electronics group Sharp and telecom partner KDDI will convert a factory site in Japan into a data center for artificial intelligence powered by advanced Nvidia chips, Nikkei has learned.

Kyodo

Sharp and KDDI agreed Sunday to begin talks on establishing a data center joint venture with other partners including Japanese systems developer Datasection. The size of the investment and the ownership breakdown have yet to be decided.

The joint venture is expected to procure around 1,000 servers equipped with next-generation Nvidia graphics processing units, such as the Blackwell series.

The servers will be procured through Datasection, which has a partnership with U.S. server builder Super Micro Computer.

KDDI will build and operate a data center network using these servers on the site of Sharp's LCD television panel factory in Sakai, near Osaka, which will close later this year.

The data center will be offered to developers of large-scale language models, which form the basis of generative AI programs like ChatGPT.

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