Nvidia AI Factory Japan: Tokyo Secures $6.2B Deal

Nvidia’s chief Jensen Huang spent two days, July 15 and 16, in Tokyo. He left with deals spanning Japan’s entire tech ecosystem: a national AI factory, partnerships with the country’s leading robotics companies, and agreements with the chip-material suppliers powering Nvidia’s next generation of AI chips. Thirty years ago, a $5 million Sega investment helped keep a near-bankrupt Nvidia afloat.

Noetra national AI factory details

The government pulled together roughly 44 domestic firms, with SoftBank, Sony, NEC and Honda at the core, to build its own AI for robots, vehicles and factory floors. Tokyo is committing up to 1 trillion yen ($6.2 billion) over five years. Nvidia is building “a Vera Rubin AI factory”, a massive data center packed with its next-generation chips, expected to launch in 2028, with 13,750 Vera CPUs and 27,500 Rubin GPUs, delivering 140 megawatts. Noetra’s plan runs in three stages: a reasoning model heavy on Japanese-language skills starting in fiscal 2026; an omni-modal version handling text, images, video, and audio by 2028; and “Real-world Native AI” built to run robots by 2030.

Robotics and automotive commitments

Fanuc, Yaskawa, Kawasaki Heavy, Fujitsu, Hitachi, NEC, Sony, SoftBank, Kubota and robotics group AIRoA say they plan to build on Nvidia’s Cosmos models. Nvidia unveiled Cosmos 3 Edge, a version of the model that runs on its Jetson Thor chips inside the machines themselves. Toyota committed its next-generation vehicles to Nvidia’s Drive platform at CES in January 2025. Huang appeared on July 16 alongside trade minister Ryosei Akazawa at the government’s physical-AI launch, with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi joining by video.

National AI robotics strategy

Japan wants 10 million AI-equipped robots across 18 sectors by 2040, backed by $65 billion in public and private physical-AI investment. Japan’s AI Robotics Strategy, released in March, aims to capture more than 30% of the global AI robotics market by 2040, a market Tokyo values at roughly ¥20 trillion, or about $133 billion. The Takaichi administration has made AI and semiconductors the centerpiece of a growth plan chasing ¥370 trillion ($2.3 trillion) in public and private investment by 2040.