Robotics: NVIDIA's Plan to Grow Physical AI in Japan

Japan, the birthplace of lean manufacturing, is now set to be home to the world’s first national AI infrastructure.

NVIDIA has partnered with Noetra, a Japanese AI consortium, to establish an AI factory supporting the country's physical AI strategy.

The initiative aims to help Japan meet its target of capturing more than 30% of the global AI robotics market by 2040, an estimated US$133bn opportunity. 

The project will use NVIDIA Vera Rubin technology and is backed by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) through its FRONTia initiative.

Japan's AI Robotics Strategy, released in March 2026, sets the 30% market share goal. According to the strategy, this represents a potential opportunity worth US$133bn by 2040.

Japan's physical AI market

Japan is the world's largest industrial robot manufacturer, making 38% of the global supply in 2024, according to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). 

The country is home to many top brands, including Epson, FANUC, Kawasaki, Yaskawa and more. 

China is currently the world's largest robotics market, accounting for 54% of global deployments, and its production share is creeping closer to the top spot. 

IFR data from 2024 shows that 295,000 industrial robots were installed in China and Japan, the second-largest market, installed just 44,500 units. 

China's domestic manufacturers are growing their share of this enormous market, with companies including ETSUN, Siasun and Dobot. 

Data centres for physical AI

NVIDIA says it will partner with Noetra to build what it calls the NVIDIA Vera Rubin AI factory, with 13,750 Vera CPUs and 27,500 Rubin GPUs.

These will be connected and scaled with NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet networking. 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."

Creating a computing foundation

The infrastructure aims to enable the development of open multimodal foundation models.

These models power AI agents, digital twins, robotics and other physical AI applications.

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

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

Government backing and investment

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. 

Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, says: "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 Japanese news service NHK, the project is worth ¥380bn, equivalent to US$2.3bn.

NHK reports Japan's industry ministry aims to introduce about 10 million AI-equipped robots across 18 sectors by 2040.