Catenaa, Thursday, July 16, 2026- Japan is planning to buy 27,500 next-generation Rubin chips from Nvidia to build a homegrown foundational AI model for robots.
Newly established Noetra Corp., which has been allocated $2.4 billion from government coffers through March of next year, said it will oversee the endeavor, with plans to build an estimated 140-megawatt data center.
Dozens of companies, including Sony Group, SoftBank, Toyota Motor-backed Preferred Networks and NEC, are helping to set up and operate Noetra.
Noetra’s data center is slated to go online in June 2028. Its Rubin order, while sizable, is small compared with plans by Microsoft to eventually build data centers scaling hundreds of thousands of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin systems.
Building a robust and vibrant AI ecosystem is important and will serve as a lifeline for resource-poor and disaster-prone Japan, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Ryosei Akazawa said.
He sported a black leather jacket at a media event to match the attire of Nvidia co-founder Jensen Huang, who was in Tokyo to drum up business around helping robots and machines learn and adapt to changing situations.
The Noetra initiative is part of a series of efforts by the government to lower its reliance on foreign technology and bolster national security.
The venture will draw on engineers from companies including SoftBank, Preferred Networks, NEC and Fujitsu, which have all developed their own AI models. SoftBank has the Sarashina, Preferred Networks has PLaMo, and NEC’s flagship model is called cotomi.
Noetra was created to bring such fragmented AI efforts together, said Noetra President Hironobu Tamba, who led the development of SoftBank’s large language model.
Japan, which is home to some of the world’s largest industrial robot makers, may be able to build an alternative to US and China AI systems, he said in an interview.
The venture plans to release an AI model by March next year, followed by regular updates. The longer-term goal will be to release a model tailored for robotics applications within a few years, Tamba said.
Developing a native physical AI model is central to Japan’s broader ambition to create a leading AI and robotics hub. The government aims to capture more than 30% of the estimated ¥60 trillion global robotics market by 2040.
The race to develop AI models capable of dictating sophisticated robotic movements has intensified globally.
In Japan, a generation of industrial craftsmen from welders to machinists are now retiring without passing on their skills. That’s where AI will be able to step in to pass a master’s craft to the next generation, Nvidia’s Huang said.
Japan will need far more infrastructure, from data centers to power grids to support its AI needs, Huang said. “We’re going to be building a lot more infrastructure here,” he said. “This is just the beginning.”
