Japan: World’s First National AI infrastructure with NVIDIA

NVIDIA announced it is working with Japanese AI consortium, Noetra, to launch an NVIDIA Vera Rubin AI factory supporting the Japanese Government's ambitions for physical AI. 

The initiative is supported by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) for its FRONTia Project .

NIVIDIA states that this marks the world’s first national AI infrastructure for physical AI and is aimed at strengthening Japan's AI ecosystem – supporting AI agents, digital twins and Japan’s newly released targets for industrial robotics. 

Japan’s AI Robotics Strategy, released in March 2026, sets a goal for the country to capture more than 30% of the global AI robotics market by 2040, representing an estimated US$133bn opportunity.

Japan is the world´s number one industrial robot manufacturer – delivering 45% of the global supply, according to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). However, China is emerging as a key player, it is the world’s largest robotics market, representing 54% of global deployments. 

Data centre capacity for physical AI

NVIDIA announced it would partner with Noetra to build the NVIDIA Vera Rubin AI factory with 13,750 Vera CPUs and 27,500 Rubin GPUs. 

Noetra is an AI consortium supported by the Japanese government whose private sector backers include Honda and Softbank. NVIDIA is laying the hardware and compute foundation for its project which is set to rapidly increase the pace in Japan’s AI ambitions. 

Physical AI applications, such as robotics, need massive amounts of electrical grid power to support the advanced AI chips required to run them. The project is set to deliver 140MW of data centre capacity based on NVIDIA’s DSX platform. 

Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, says: “Japan invented modern manufacturing. Now, it is building the AI factories that will power the next industrial revolution. 

“NVIDIA is honoured to partner with Japan and its industrial leaders to build the AI infrastructure that will power the country’s industries, its economy and a new generation of innovation.”

The initiative is aimed at strengthening the country’s AI ecosystem across a wide variety of industries including manufacturing, logistics, healthcare and telecommunications.

The computing foundation

The new AI factory, established by Japan’s Noetra, will be architected with NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 racks using the NVIDIA DSX platform, connected and scaled with NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet networking. 

It will enable the development of open multimodal foundation models that power AI agents, digital twins, robotics and other physical AI applications.

The NVIDIA Vera Rubin AI factory will provide the computing foundation for Japan’s FRONTia Project. 

“Bringing physical AI into the real world requires enormous computing, data and foundational technologies, challenges no single company can solve alone,” says Hironobu Tamba, CEO of Noetra. 

The FRONTia Project

The FRONTia project refers to the project titled, Development of Multimodal Foundation Models with a View to AI Robotics and Physical AI, launched by METI. 

Speaking about the collaboration with NVIDIA, Ryosei Akazawa, Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, says: “Japan has launched the FRONTia Project, which will serve as the core of the country’s physical AI ecosystem.

"By fostering collaboration between Japan and leading global innovators, including NVIDIA and leveraging Japan’s strengths, such as its onsite expertise and manufacturing technology infrastructure, we will build highly reliable multimodal foundation models and contribute to solving global social challenges.”

According to the Japanese news service, NHK, the industry ministry decided to commission the project, which is worth ¥380bn (US$2.3bn), to Noetra and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology.

Japan’s physical AI ambitions

As Japan lays some of the computing and hardware capacity needed to power physical AI applications, its robotics strategy says the country aims to capture more than 30% of the global AI robotics market by 2040.

According to NHK, Japan's industry ministry aims to introduce about 10 million AI-equipped robots across 18 sectors by 2040 amid the country's growing labour shortage.

While Japan retains its seat as the largest robot manufacturer, China leads on installations. The latest IFR figures show that 295,000 industrial robots have been installed in China, while Japan, the second largest market for industrial robots, installed 44,500 units in 2024. 

China's domestic manufacturing is growing too. According to the IFR’s World Robotics 2025 Report, for the first time, Chinese manufacturers sold more factory robots than foreign manufacturers at home in 2024, its share climbed to 57% across industries, up from 47% in 2023.

Japan remains a major robotics exporter to China, 36% of Japanese exports of robotics and automation technology were destined for China in 2020, according to the IFR.