Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang spent July 15 and 16 in Tokyo, announcing a national AI factory, partnerships with Japan’s leading robotics companies, and agreements with chip-material suppliers, in a trip that put physical AI at the center of the country’s industrial strategy.
The visit, which included a meeting with trade minister Ryosei Akazawa and a video appearance by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, produced a string of deals that tie Nvidia’s hardware and software to Japan’s ambitious plan to deploy 10 million AI-equipped robots across 18 sectors by 2040. The push is backed by $65 billion in public and private physical-AI investment.
“The next frontier of AI is in the physical world, and this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Japan,” Huang said.
National AI Factory and Sovereign Ambitions
The centerpiece of the visit is Noetra, Japan’s sovereign-AI consortium, which includes roughly 44 domestic firms. Its core members are SoftBank, Sony, NEC, and Honda. Tokyo is committing up to 1 trillion yen ($6.2 billion) over five years for homegrown physical AI, with Nvidia building the “Vera Rubin AI factory” to power it.
The facility will house 13,750 Vera CPUs and 27,500 Rubin GPUs, delivering 140 megawatts of compute. It is expected to launch in 2028 and is billed by Nvidia as “the world’s first national AI infrastructure.”
Noetra’s plan unfolds in three stages: a reasoning model in fiscal 2026, an omni-modal model in 2028, and a Real-world Native AI for robots by 2030. Japan wants to own the software brain for physical AI, and the factory is designed to give the country its own data, compute, and less dependence on foreign infrastructure.
“Japan invented modern manufacturing. Now, it has the opportunity to reinvent it for the age of intelligent industries,” Huang said.
The sovereign case is clear. Japan faces a shrinking workforce, and the U.S. and China are pulling ahead in large-scale AI. AI and semiconductors are a centerpiece of the Takaichi administration’s growth plan. The government’s AI Robotics Strategy, released in March, aims to capture more than 30% of the global AI robotics market by 2040. Tokyo values that market at roughly ¥20 trillion (about $133 billion). The Takaichi administration targets ¥370 trillion ($2.3 trillion) in public and private investment by 2040.
Robotics Coalition and Cosmos 3 Edge
Huang met the CEOs of Toyota, Fanuc, Yaskawa, Fujitsu, and Kawasaki Heavy over lunch. The broader robotics coalition includes Hitachi, NEC, Sony, SoftBank, Kubota, and the Japanese robotics group AIRoA. Nvidia unveiled Cosmos 3 Edge, which runs on Jetson Thor chips inside machines. The Cosmos open-model effort started in May with global AI labs.
Honda R&D is building on Cosmos tools, as is Omron. The coalition brings together Japan’s industrial giants in a bid to make the country a leader in physical AI, where machines can perceive, reason, and act in the real world.
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Japan wants 10 million AI-equipped robots across 18 sectors by 2040, a target that requires massive compute and software integration. The robotics push is part of a broader strategy to maintain Japan’s manufacturing edge while addressing demographic decline.
Toyota and the Drive Platform
Toyota committed its next-generation vehicles to Nvidia’s Drive platform at CES in January 2025. The automaker’s advanced driver-assistance system requires a driver, making it more conservative than the approaches of Waymo or Tesla. The deal extends Nvidia’s reach into manufacturing and ADAS, tying the chip company to one of the world’s largest automakers.
Huang’s visit also included meetings with supply-chain chiefs in a Kanda izakaya, underscoring the importance of chip-material suppliers to Nvidia’s strategy in Japan.
A 30-Year Relationship
The trip is part of a broader playbook. Weeks earlier, Huang delivered a homecoming keynote in Taiwan. Last fall, he was in Seoul with a 50,000-GPU deal. But Japan holds a special place in Nvidia’s history.
Thirty years ago, when Nvidia was near bankruptcy, Sega invested $5 million in the company. That investment helped keep Nvidia afloat. Now, Japan’s industrial giants and Nvidia need each other again for the physical-AI era.
Underneath the industrial case is a sovereign one. Japan’s push for independence, at least for now, rests on American chips. The Noetra factory, the robotics coalition, and the chip-supplier agreements all depend on Nvidia’s hardware and software. The question is whether Japan can build its own AI infrastructure without becoming dependent on a single American supplier.
The Road Ahead
The timeline is aggressive. The Noetra reasoning model is due in fiscal 2026. The Vera Rubin AI factory launches in 2028, the same year as the omni-modal model. By 2030, Japan aims to have Real-world Native AI for robots. By 2040, the country wants 10 million robots, more than 30% of the global market, and ¥370 trillion in investment.
Huang’s visit put physical AI at the center of Japan’s industrial strategy. The deals announced in Tokyo are a bet that Japan can reinvent manufacturing for the age of intelligent industries. Whether that bet pays off depends on execution, investment, and the ability to balance sovereignty with reliance on American technology.