(Washington) Microsoft announced Tuesday that it will invest $2.9 billion over the next two years in Japan to support the country’s advancement in artificial intelligence (AI).
This announcement coincides with the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to Washington, who insisted on his country’s determination to become a major power in this area.
Microsoft established itself as a key player in AI last year thanks to its partnership with OpenAI, the start-up that created ChatGPT, to the point of dethroning Apple as the largest company in the world in terms of capitalization stock market.
“This is Microsoft’s largest investment in its 46-year history in Japan,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a statement.
The deal includes the provision of “more advanced computing resources”, he detailed, including ultra-advanced computer chips (GPUs), crucial for training AI models.
Microsoft has also committed to investing in AI training for three million Japanese workers over the next three years, and announced the opening of its first lab in Tokyo, Microsoft Research Asia, which will work on AI and the robotics.
Highlighting the growing importance of cybersecurity amid an increase in breaches and hacks, Microsoft also intends to work with the Japanese government to strengthen the country’s cyber defenses.
“The range of cybersecurity threats has become more complicated […]. We’re seeing it with China and Russia in particular, but we’re also seeing more and more ransomware attacks around the world,” Brad Smith told the Japanese daily. Nikkei.
Cybersecurity specialists from the US Department of Homeland Security recently criticized Microsoft for a “cascade of avoidable errors” that allowed a group of Chinese hackers to break into the IT giant’s servers, accessing emails from several senior US officials last year.