NVIDIA deepens cooperation with Japan, laying out a network for "sovereign artificial intelligence" and industrial robots

Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, recently announced a series of significant cooperation agreements with the Japanese government and local industries during his visit to Japan. NVIDIA will fully participate in the construction of Japan's "Sovereign AI" infrastructure and the layout of the "Physical AI" industry, attempting to deepen its market presence in Japan through technology exports.

Jensen Huang delivers a speech in Japan

At an industry summit held in Tokyo, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and NVIDIA jointly announced a national-level artificial intelligence project named "Noetra." This project is formed by 44 key Japanese manufacturing and technology companies, including SoftBank, Sony, Honda, NEC, Hitachi, and Fujitsu. The plan is for the Japanese government to invest approximately 1 trillion yen over the next five years to build a large-scale computing power center in Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture. The center is expected to be operational by 2028, deploying about 27,500 NVIDIA's next-generation "Rubin" architecture graphics processing units (GPUs) for the development of local multimodal large language models, with a focus on empowering industrial automation, robotics, and automotive manufacturing.

At the same time, NVIDIA announced further expansion of its strategic cooperation with SoftBank. SoftBank is building Japan's largest AI supercomputer based on NVIDIA's Blackwell and Grace Blackwell chip architectures and is piloting AI-RAN technology based on 5G networks to construct a foundational computing power network covering Japan. Additionally, NVIDIA has reached cooperation agreements with leading Japanese industrial and manufacturing companies such as Fanuc, Yaskawa Electric, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, and Toyota Motor, planning to combine physical simulation platforms with industrial robots to accelerate the transformation of smart factories and automated production lines.

In his speech, Jensen Huang emphasized that data and computing power autonomy have significant strategic importance for the economic security of countries, and creating "Sovereign AI" that aligns with local languages and industrial processes will become the core of future digital infrastructure. Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Akazawa Ryoji, stated that combining the on-site experience of Japan's advanced manufacturing industry with cutting-edge computing power will help strengthen local industrial competitiveness and alleviate labor shortages caused by an aging population.

Analysts point out that in the context of losing some overseas major markets due to U.S. export controls, NVIDIA is accelerating its strategic shift towards allied markets such as Europe and Japan, driving hardware infrastructure sales through the export of the "Sovereign AI" concept. However, whether Japan's local AI ecosystem can effectively absorb the massive computing power and whether related industrial applications can be implemented as scheduled remains to be further tested by the market