SoftBank’s Izanagi AI processor could arrive in 2025, says report
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A prototype Izanagi AI processor from SoftBank Group Corp. could be available as early as the summer of 2025, according to a Bloomberg report.
The report – which references sources involved with SoftBank and Project Izanagi – states that Masayoshi Son, the company’s founder and CEO, has become obsessed with building a company to take on semiconductor market leader Nvidia Corp. He wants to do that by selling a processor to address Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). AGI is seen as a broad description of a step up from the generative AI that is currently driving AI chip sales into datacenters.
Izanagi was tipped in February 2024 as SoftBank was reportedly raising funds for the project. The name is a reference to the Japanese Shinto god of creation and life.
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Now Son is aiming to have the first Izanagi AI chips ready for shipment in 2026. with prototype samples available in the summer of 2025, Bloomberg reported.
The development of Izanagi will almost certainly rely on processor licensor Arm Holdings plc, in which SoftBank retains a 90 percent stake after an IPO in September 2023, and Graphcore Ltd. a struggling AI processor company SoftBank bought in 2024. Both companies are likely to provide architecture and design skills to Izanagi, but whether one or other provides the go-to-market and support channel remains uncertain.
As a result the Izanagi project could also involve a shift in business model for ARM. There are already reports that ARM is considering shipping complete chips to some customers in competition with others.
Having had to lay off staff in 2022 Graphcore has started rebuilding design teams. In November 2024 SoftBank commented that Graphcore was playing an important role in the development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) alongside ARM.
Bloomberg also reported that Son is working with Rene Haas, the CEO of ARM, with a view to transforming the intellectual property licensor and move it up the value chain to make it chip provider. Some of these ambitions may have provided an undercurrent to ARM’s dispute to with licensee Qualcomm, which recently aired in a Wilmington, Delaware courtroom.
ARM approached Intel in September 2024, with a view to buying the Intel products part of the business, the report said, indicating it was part of a SoftBank plan to build a processor powerhouse to fight Nvidia. Meanwhile SoftBank has been approaching hyperscalers to see if they want to contribute to the Izanagi project. With the extreme cost of Nvidia GPUs many hyperscalers are attempting to design and deploy their own AI processors.
At present Nvidia dominates the AI processor field with its GPUs for AI functions in the datacenter. Qualcomm was expecting to use an architectural license from ARM to address what some see as the next frontier for AI; in the smartphone and in the personal computer. However, this is also an opportunity that ARM licensee Apple and SoftBank are eyeing – and potentially ARM itself.
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