With demand for artificial intelligence booming, industry players are racing to find a competitive edge, especially when it comes to the all-important factor of speed.

Major Japanese cell phone carrier SoftBank and US semiconductor giant Nvidia are working on a data processing system that relies on cellular base stations.

It works by installing AI chips actually in the stations, rather than at remote data centers, speeding up the process for the end user.

Soma Velayutham, General Manager for AI & Telecoms at Nvidia said, "So you push the computer closer to customers, you enable new use cases applications, which is low latency, and secure data closer to customers."

The companies say they hope to use the system to improve self-driving car technology. A current trial has AI-equipped base stations giving instructions to help vehicles stop and make route changes.

Miyakawa Junichi, President and CEO, SoftBank said, "If we can prove what we're doing is effective in Japan, we want to make it a role model for exporting this technology."

Elsewhere, Japanese telecom giant NTT is developing a system that connects data centers via a next-generation high-speed optical communications network.