Posted by my123 2 days ago
It was just timing. Their networking gear was built on some very impressive ASICs which became commodity chips a few years later before they could grow. Arista, Juniper, et al ate their lunch using other vendors’ IP. IIRC it was Broadcom and Fulcrum that released the chips that killed them.
I'm sure there were good reaasons for this, but man this just sounds bad. Like that's the spec I think NSA must give to their contractors outfitting 611 Folsom Street's Room 641A
In my case it was for mobile wireless signaling traffic (all the coordination for creating a mobile internet connection, handing the connection off between towers, etc), and I'd credit it as one of the reasons you're mobile internet connection is so stable. When LTE first came out, myself and many others solved all sorts of bugs in the equipment and protocols by using or building these sorts of tools.
80% of the relevant outcome was typically to get a true-to-the-wire sniffer capture (switch mirrors won't always mirror 100% of packets for various reasons) for troubleshooting performance of whatever the complaint of the day from the server team was.
19% was for feeding a security monitoring systems which looked for abnormal flow patterns to let us know a server was compromised.
1% was for the call recording system compliance requirement for the emergency department.
0% was because I was a cool superspy tasked by the government to siphon info to them or trying to sell medical records on the black market or something. I mean, you can try to something nefarious with such tools... but one could say the same about a generic server, SAN, application, etc as well. People are just used to understanding what those would typically be used for so they don't assume it must be for the scary thing they've heard about.
That said, it doesn't rule it out either. But again, the concern shouldn't be sourcing from their usage of normal infrastructure tools it should be sourcing from... well, all of the user analytics Google very publicly does directly in the server.
https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2023-02/TLP%20CLEAR...
My home network is XG2000 10G core and a few XG0224 1G/10G dist. Very nice switches.
The same way Congress has been subsidizing Boeing and its competitors since WW2 to make sure we can build things that fly if another war ever starts. Or with drones, that we can build ones that will be flown BY US instead of defecting the moment they get in range of the other side.
Funny you should mention that. Boeing deliberately buys 35% of a 787's airframe from Japan (along with other equipment for the 787 and other models).
That's a deliberate play: we buy a lot of parts from Japanese companies, your airlines buy mostly Boeing airplanes. Even today despite some diversification Boeing has over 70% marketshare in Japan.
If you ever wondered why Airbus setup factories in the USA that's a similar deal. The US Gov and Mil want to ensure factories and workforce on home soil should the need arise. In some unrecorded meetings somewhere strong hints were no doubt dropped that it would be in Airbus' best interest to play ball. They obliged.
That said the USA is the largest supplier of parts for Airbus airliners so there's also a benefit to having aerospace manufacturing and R&D here.
This is the first time ever I am hearing of Fujitsu being involved in any bribing/lobbying controversy in the US (whether as a victim or an offender), and I doubt I am the only user in this thread in this position.
Unless it is a very well-known controversy, I feel like there is a need for extra context here. I am not even asking for anything of the "proof beyond any reasonable doubt" nature, I simply want to understand what you are trying to reference.
Its a genuinely terrible place to do business, and its full of genuinely terrible people to do business with.
Oh and Trump made it a bit worse with Tariffs I guess.
Hope this helps.
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)
>Combined with SVE2 vector operations and software optimization,
It’s ARMv9.
Nowadays if you have the source code the ISA is practically irrelevant.
> FUJITSU-MONAKA is a Next-Gen Arm-based processor, set for release in 2027, designed to address the challenges of next-generation data centers with its unmatched performance and power efficiency.
https://global.fujitsu/en-global/technology/research/fujitsu...
It is no secret it is Arm; MONAKA was announced in late 2024.
https://www.techpowerup.com/329761/fujitsu-previews-monaka-1...
>next-generation CPU, FUJITSU-MONAKA [1], designed and developed in Japan
>Fujitsu MONAKA Server, powered by the FUJITSU-MONAKA CPU, enhances sovereign capabilities through domestic manufacturing,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Advanced_Semiconductor_M...
>The Phase 2 factory was under construction as of January 2025, next to the Phase 1 facility, and is expected to be completed by 2027.[3] Initially planned for manufacturing semiconductors using a 6 nm process, 3 nm was incorporated into production plans for 2028 in 2026
> Achieving world-class AI inference performance through Japan-developed 2nm 3D-stacked CPU and server integrated, developed, and manufactured in Japan
Sounds pretty clear to me
All the component chips are made at TSMC, in various processes.
"Developed in Japan" means the same thing like "developed in USA" means for NVIDIA or AMD or Intel. You can design chips anywhere on the planet, as long as TSMC is willing to provide you the required documentation and EDA libraries (which it does only if you already are or they believe that you will be a big customer).
Since that theory began to be used, anyone outside US has become anxious to become "sovereign", i.e. to stop using anything about which a foreign state can claim to have rights.
The AI stuff is basically "well sure, these are really good at distributed matrix math, why not?" hoping to get better volumes and make the program cheaper internally.
And they're working on getting chips fabbed in Japan too now that IBM sold their 2nm process to Rapidus, but that's probably successor to these. Maybe 2028? In the meantime there's still more nuclear simulations to run than there is compute to run them.
Michael Palmer, in his book Hiroshima revisited, doesn't go as far as to rule out “nukes” entirely, but damage assessment, medical evidence, witness reports and measurements show that no such thing as claimed by the US and Japanese governments happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Instead, there were other ingredients to the atrocities, like the usual napalm, so-called “pumpkin bombs” (the iconic Nagasaki model), flash bombs and coloured smoke (“special effects”), and mustard gas (to generate “radiation sickness”), which is a gel that can linger on and emit poison for weeks (depending on the weather).
Napalm and mustard gas are 100 % consistent with the medical record, which the author is professionally qualified to assess, citing academic literature (which is scarse in case of napalm, probably on account of its heavy use by the US against East Asian peoples in the “defense of democracy”).
The damage pattern is extensive rather than intensive (that is the military expert assessment), just as seen in other napalmed cities in Japan. Miraculous survivors at the alleged “ground zero” (no such thing can really be derived from the damage pattern) preclude any generation of heat drastically higher than what is attainable by conventional means (“victims were vaporized”). So do slender objects like antennas and trees (which blossomed again next spring, then interpreted as a “miracle”). The few stone buildings there were can be seen standing out among the remains of flimsy huts that were blown and burnt.
And of course there was no disruption in settlement, the cities were built up and inhabited again.
« simulations on what happens with your aging asrenal » — Swarms of red herrings to keep the myth alive. Surely other uses of supercomputers are conceivable, even for non-disclosed purposes.
Strangely, while the non-existence of such weapons is undoubtedly good news, there are many “nuke fanboys” (no girls, though – this is a male thing) who will get upset and even angry at this, as if the “atomic bomb” were some kind of god to venerate, when it really only is lies and propaganda that we've been fed when we were kids.
To be clear, this is not to dispute nuclear energy, just the claim that it may be used to obtain explosions, and even extraordinary ones.
Wafers rare Earth's, specialized equipment, etc?
I don't think it is that basic. If anything it's probably more about having protection from trade and sanction threats, and insulation from shortages, supply chain problems.
> Nothing about this changes that IMO. They're still getting the chips fabbed somewhere else and run the same risks.
It certainly changes it. Chip design is of enormous importance and the technology leaders there are concentrated in the USA.
Silicon manufacturing is a different thing. Japan is also trying to bring up sovereign leading(ish) edge manufacturing. Obviously you keep peeling the onion on everything though - to do digital logic they need EDA tools and quite possibly IP blocks for PCI and DDR and so on. To do manufacturing they need scanners from ASML and a process design from IBM and so on... It doesn't mean that because they can't do everything from the ground up that it's pointless. At some point they need to import coal and iron ore and bauxite.
((2nm 3d stacked CPU) and server) (integrated, developed, and manufactured in Japan)
or
(2nm 3d stacked CPU) and (server integrated, developed, and manufactured in Japan)
That manufacturing step may change in the future, but right now that CPU is not "Made in Japan", it's only "Designed in Japan".
The core die is made with TSMC-N2P, while the SRAM die and the peripheral die are made with TSMC-N5.
Their CPU is designed in Japan, like the AMD CPUs or the Intel CPUs are designed in USA (the latest Panther Lake Intel CPUs have returned for fabrication to USA in 2026, but they also cost double than the corresponding Arrow Lake models made at TSMC in 2025, and their GPUs are still made at TSMC).
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?
Its ARM predecessor started in 2014: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugaku_(supercomputer)
And before that they were the using SPARC64: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC64_V
I do find it funny how the harder some folks push for an outcome, the more they bring about the opposite effect.
I mean the US had this sense of confidence that they were at the top of the power structure, it was widely accepted and overall that position and deal seemed to benefit many others even if not to the same scale. For example with Europe, the US got favorable trade terms in exchange for defense.
Then the Trump administration came in and started pushing the narrative of MAGA, to almost be professional victims. Winner of the world lottery and yet still not happy. And so instead of making America Great again, they are on the fast track of being cut out of favorable global trade. They over played their hand. And once others end up being self sufficient again, it is very difficult to get back in the good books.
In trying to avoid being pushed around, they are now starting to see they could be pushed around.
Those questions didn't used to be significant factors.
It's weird that they don't give out any of the interesting numbers like number of memory channels, how much SRAM they have (CPUs tend to have more of it) or what their expected performance is going to be.
See e.g.:
https://chipsandcheese.com/p/hot-chips-2026-fujitsus-monaka-...
They have provided far more details than companies like Apple or Qualcomm.
Edit: it’s funny because this article from 2021 mentioned Fujisu precisely https://siliconangle.com/2021/03/30/arm-unveils-armv9-archit...
It is a custom Armv9.3-A design (same ISA like the Arm C1 CPUs from the flagship smartphones of 2026), but it has double-width execution units for SVE2 (i.e. 256-bit width, vs. 128-bit for the other Arm CPUs) and it has some ISA extensions for AI/ML, e.g. instructions for inference with FP8 (BF16 is already supported by the standard Arm ISA).
Despite the fact that Armv9.3-A may include SME (scalable matrix extension, like in the Apple CPUs and in the Arm C1 CPUs), Fujitsu did not mention SME, so I assume that they did not implement it and they rely on their enhanced SVE2 (which is not surprising, while the origin of Arm SME is at Apple, the origin of Arm SVE is at Fujitsu).
(I think Japanese sovereignty is the main point of the article.)
Seems they have decided they don’t want to create their own architecture, but take the popular architecture and build on it.
See: - Blue LEDs - Quartz Watches - Lithium-ion Batteries - Bidets
The industry is now mature enough that nobody really wants the headache of a new architecture at this point in time, Risc-V got a pass for being a grassroots movement growing out off FPGA's since the IP situation was more or less clear or even predatory with all existing architectures, Power, Sparc,SuperH,68k,etc are buried for good reasons.
POWER/PowerPC is what happens when you take a brilliant design to execute it poorly. x86 is when you take a poor design and execute is brilliantly.
Edit I think I was thinking of Mitsubishi.
About a month later there was a summer heat wave and I went to a friends house who had just bought one. It was wild walking in from a 45c day into, as advertised, a 17c house. Had to give it to them, they lived up to the claim.
That they come from the telecom/server space, it makes sense they had a good eye for aircon engineering.
During the decade 1995-2005, until the 64-bit AMD Opteron servers with Linux offered an alternative that crushed any kind of SPARC CPU with Solaris by a much higher performance combined with a much lower price, the SPARC Sun or Fujitsu servers dominated the market for servers used to host the CAD/EDA design tools used in electronics engineering, for the design of integrated circuits or electronic equipment. This means that all the EDA software from vendors like Mentor, Cadence, Synopsis etc. was available only for Solaris. That kind of software could not be run on Windows, due to the 32-bit memory limit. During that time, whoever got Fujitsu servers instead of the sluggish Sun servers, was very lucky.
In the mid-2000's, Sun decided to take SPARC towards designs with many small SMT cores. In the era of single-core processors, the UltraSPARC T1 had 8 cores x 4 threads per core. This was at the same time Intel released the Pentium 4 with hyper-threading, so it was an industry trend.
This of course works great for very specific applications, particularly considering efficiency, but is awful for others. Scientific computation was especially bad because the T1 had only one FPU for 8 cores.
Fujitsu's SPARC64 didn't go in this direction, and stayed with a conventional design (2 way SMT at most). Sun realized this and started to also sell the Fujitsu SPARC64 for customers who couldn't use the thread level parallelism, an arrangement that lasted until the end.
The idea of lots of slow cores is still a thing today: Intel's Sierra Forest Xeon is 144 E-cores.
Still, iirc FPU's were silicon heavy back in those days and it'd be interesting to know how far ahead the foundries Sun and Fujitsu were, maybe it was simply a factor of being too far behind in the foundry race that left Sun with few options.
Intel's E-Cores still are functionally complete for most parts though (excl Avx512?)? Todays limits seems to be memory bandwidth and power and I guess many of the 144 core customers are in it for virtualization and servers?
What are the GPU capabilities?
Platform designers can make up their own memory maps, so non-x86 ones can just have UART I/O buffer and hardware interface wired up in whatever address you want and forgo VGA.
I have a 32bit SPARC machine on a shelf I got from a junk hardware shop, it has a DB25 for console. It's ok.
Obviously they can just ignore the license in the future and continue development out of a local branch, but it's also a bit disingenuous to speak of "sovereign infrastructure" and then use licensed processor design.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monaka
It's not terribly popular even in Japan, since it's dry, bland, fragile and has to be assembled on the spot or it goes soggy.
Pun intended?
Also odd how big an emphasis they put on AI inference when they don't build the GPU?
> For FUJITSU-MONAKA, the 2nm semiconductors will tape out next year. Due to this, Rapidus would be unable to meet the deadline, so TSMC is handling the manufacturing.
Source: https://global.fujitsu/en-global/pr/news/2026/02/12-01?utm_s...
According to Rapidus webpage, they are explicitly starting mass production of their 2nm in 2027.
Source: https://www.rapidus.inc/en/iim/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Fujitsu has added some ISA extensions for AI inference to the standard Arm ISA, e.g. instructions for inference with FP8.
Even their previous CPU generation was for some time the champion in energy efficiency, with better performance per watt than the NVIDIA GPUs, until a newer generation of NVIDIA GPUs has leapfrogged them.
There are good chances that this new Fujitsu CPU might be again for some time the CPU with the best energy efficiency, but it remains to be seen how it compares with the recent GPUs.
GPU in AI world is essentially a set of specific matrix calculations that this CPU supports on hardware-level. Thought memory speed seems low.
- Japan-developed 2nm 3D-stacked CPU
- server integrated, developed, and manufactured in Japan
so its as sovereign as you can get