Jensen Huang's Japan Visit: Key Deals and What Comes Next
Original: What to watch for after Jensen Huang’s Japan visit
Why This Matters
Japan's $6.2B sovereign AI bet and broad robotics coalition signal a major shift toward physical-AI infrastructure at national scale.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang visited Tokyo on July 15–16, 2026, securing deals across Japan's tech ecosystem, including a sovereign AI initiative called Noetra backed by up to 1 trillion yen ($6.2B), a next-gen AI factory featuring 27,500 Rubin GPUs, and a robotics coalition built around Nvidia's Cosmos models.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang spent two days in Tokyo (July 15–16), following earlier visits to Taiwan and South Korea, emerging with agreements spanning Japan's entire technology landscape.
The centerpiece is Noetra, Japan's sovereign AI initiative. Approximately 44 domestic firms — led by SoftBank, Sony, NEC, and Honda — are collaborating to build homegrown 'physical AI' foundation models for robots, vehicles, and factory floors. The Japanese government is committing up to 1 trillion yen ($6.2 billion) over five years. To power it, Nvidia will build a 'Vera Rubin AI factory' data center housing 13,750 Vera CPUs and 27,500 Rubin GPUs delivering 140 megawatts, expected to launch in 2028. Noetra's roadmap runs in three phases: a Japanese-language reasoning model (fiscal 2026), an omni-modal system covering text, images, video, and audio (2028), and real-world robot-native AI (2030).
On the robotics side, Fanuc, Yaskawa, Kawasaki Heavy, Fujitsu, Hitachi, NEC, Sony, SoftBank, Kubota, and AIRoA have committed to building on Nvidia's Cosmos open models. Nvidia unveiled Cosmos 3 Edge in Tokyo — a version designed to run on Jetson Thor chips inside machines themselves. Honda R&D and Omron are already building on these tools.
"The next frontier of AI is in the physical world, and this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Japan," Huang said.