Japan is expanding its national strategy on physical artificial intelligence (AI) through government-backed computing infrastructure projects and new partnerships with domestic manufacturers and robotics companies aimed at accelerating industrial automation and AI development.
The initiative, announced during Nvidia’s AI conference in Japan, includes plans to establish what organizers described as the world’s first national AI infrastructure dedicated to physical AI, as well as broader efforts by Japanese industry to use the AI platform to develop intelligent machines.
Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) supports the FRONTia project, a national program to develop multimodal foundational models for robotics and physical AI. The project will use an AI factory built by Noetra Corp. as a computing platform to develop AI agents, robotics, digital twins, and other industrial AI applications.
Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yoshinari Akazawa said, “Japan has launched the FRONTia project, which will be the core of Japan’s physical AI ecosystem.”
“By promoting collaboration between Japan and the world’s leading innovators, including NVIDIA, and leveraging Japan’s strengths such as on-the-ground expertise and manufacturing technology infrastructure, we will build highly reliable multimodal infrastructure models and contribute to solving global social issues,” he said.
Separately, Japanese manufacturers and technology companies are expanding their physical AI efforts using Nvidia’s Cosmos, Isaac, Metropolis, and Jetson platforms for manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, agriculture, and infrastructure applications.
Companies planning to join the Nvidia Cosmos Coalition include Fanuc, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Kubota, NEC, SoftBank Corp., Sony Group Inc., Yaskawa Electric, and more. Coalition members are expected to contribute to the development of open-world AI models for robotics and industrial applications.
Several companies have also announced projects involving physical AI. Fujitsu is considering building a control platform in collaboration with Fanuc, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, and Yaskawa Electric. NEC, Hitachi, OMRON, and Preferred Networks are advancing industrial AI research, and SoftBank Corp. is developing a physical AI platform and AI-RAN technology. Other companies are exploring a wide range of applications, from autonomous farming and retail automation to elderly care and smart building operations.
“The next frontier for AI is in the physical world, and this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Japan,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA.
“Japan invented modern manufacturing, and now Japan has an opportunity to reinvent manufacturing for the era of intelligent industry,” Huang said.
According to the announcement, Japan’s AI robotics strategy aims to capture more than 30% of the global AI robotics market by 2040 through investments in AI infrastructure, robotics research and industrial partnerships.
