Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang seals AI factory and robotics deals in Tokyo
During a two-day visit to Tokyo, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang secured agreements for a national AI factory, robotics collaborations, and chip supply deals, marking a strategic push into physical AI for manufacturing.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang spent July 15 and 16 in Tokyo courting Japan's industrial and chip-supply elite, weeks after a keynote in Taiwan and months after a visit to South Korea. He left with deals spanning Japan's entire tech ecosystem, including a national AI factory, partnerships with leading robotics companies, and agreements with chip-material suppliers.
Noetra – Japan's sovereign AI play
One of the key announcements is Noetra, Japan's national AI venture aimed at building its own AI for robots, vehicles, and factory floors. The government, together with 44 domestic firms including SoftBank, Sony, NEC, and Honda, is committing up to 1 trillion yen ($6.2 billion) over five years to develop homegrown "physical AI." Nvidia will provide the hardware, building a "Vera Rubin AI factory" – a massive data center with 13,750 Vera CPUs and 27,500 Rubin GPUs, expected to launch in 2028 and consuming 140 megawatts.
Robotics coalition
Japan's top industrial giants, including Fanuc, Yaskawa, Kawasaki Heavy, Fujitsu, Hitachi, NEC, Sony, SoftBank, Kubota, and robotics group AIRoA, have signed on to build on Nvidia's Cosmos models. Nvidia unveiled Cosmos 3 Edge, a version that runs on its Jetson Thor chips inside the machines themselves. Some are already testing a shared control system.
Toyota and physical AI
Toyota committed its next-generation vehicles to Nvidia's Drive platform and is extending Nvidia into manufacturing simulations, vehicle software, and traffic-reading systems. Toyota's approach focuses on advanced driver assistance, which still requires a driver, a more conservative strategy than Waymo or Tesla.
Strategic significance
Huang's visit put physical AI at the center of Japan's industrial strategy. Facing a shrinking workforce, Japan aims to deploy 10 million AI-equipped robots across 18 sectors by 2040, backed by $65 billion in public and private investment. Japan's AI Robotics Strategy targets capturing more than 30% of the global AI robotics market by 2040. Noetra's factory, which Nvidia calls "the world's first national AI infrastructure," is the clearest bet yet on Japan's push for independence from U.S. and Chinese AI, though it still relies on American chips.
