Fujitsu's 'Made-in-Japan' 2nm CPU Is Really Designed in Japan, Not Built There
Fujitsu launches made-in-Japan next-generation CPU FUJITSU-MONAKA
Fujitsu launched FUJITSU-MONAKA, a 2nm 3D-stacked CPU it calls sovereign, but Hacker News commenters pick apart the wording: the chip is 'designed and developed in Japan,' while the server is 'integrated, developed, and manufactured' there. Critics doubt Fujitsu can break into an overcrowded market, note the architecture and fab are likely foreign, and ask why AI-inference claims come without memory channels, SRAM, or performance numbers.
It's not 'sovereign', the architecture is not designed in Japan, the silicon is not fabbed in Japan. This whole thing is sideways.
- a11r
Back in 2008 Fujitsu has one of the best performing 10Gbps Switches. We were building 40 Gbps packet sniffers at Google (4x 10 Gbps NICs) and needed switches that could do things like mirror traffic across ports at line rate. Fujitsu was way ahead of the pack. I always wondered what held them back from building a meaningful networking business in the US.
- jaen
More detailed presentations about the Monaka CPU:
wccftech summary: https://wccftech.com/fujitsus-monaka-chip-3d-stacks-2nm-cpu-...
2026: https://global.fujitsu/-/media/Project/Fujitsu/Fujitsu-HQ/te...
2023: https://global.fujitsu/-/media/Project/Fujitsu/Fujitsu-HQ/te...
FugakuNEXT, the supercomputer it will be used in, also some details about the next-gen Monaka-X: https://global.fujitsu/-/media/Project/Fujitsu/Fujitsu-HQ/te...
For a single CPU:
844 GB/s memory bandwidth (12 channels of DDR5 RDIMM, 8800MT/s). 4.3-6 TFLOPS.
Basically comparable to a modern (although not top-end) GPU, so good for HPC & AI workloads. (though only 2 CPUs per node, with GPUs 4-8 is more common)
- irusensei
If anyone is curious and want to skip all the PR talk:
>Combined with SVE2 vector operations and software optimization,
It’s ARMv9.
- Zigurd
The US administration created at least 90% of what we now call technology sovereignty concerns. Technology sovereignty is front and center in this announcement. Before the president started making wildly inappropriate remarks about grabbing territory from allies and other previously unthinkable utterances, almost everyone was happy to buy technology from US hardware and software vendors. Complacency about the state of democracy and rule of law in the US was the norm.
Why does this matter? Markets outside the US account for about half of many US technology vendors' revenue. Who is going to speak up first?
- alightsoul
Fun fact, Fujitsu used to run their own fabs in Japan until they were sold to UMC and now they're another UMC fab although they are stuck at like the 20nm node. So this is likely made at JASM.
- rwmj
It's Arm based, although they barely mention that.
- Youden
Where are the CPUs fabbed? They make a big deal about "sovereign" but is the CPU actually made in Japan, or do they rely on TSMC?
Also odd how big an emphasis they put on AI inference when they don't build the GPU?
- djray
Could someone knowledgeable please explain why an AI-focused CPU is superior to a GPU-based solution with an ARM CPU driving the high-level operations, please, especially when the RAM isn't on-chip?
I know that for GPU's the model weights have to be transferred over the bus initially, but that only has to occur once for inference use cases, so is the Fujitsu system more about training scenarios? Or is the focus more about efficiency, as these are ARM-based cores with AI additions?