NVIDIA Forges Robotics Alliance in Japan and Builds AI Factory with 27,500 Rubin GPUs

As an NVIDIA release from Wednesday shows, Fujitsu is building, together with Fanuc, Yaskawa Electric, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, a shared control platform for industrial robots. It is based on the NVIDIA technologies Cosmos, Isaac, and Omniverse, which are used for digital twins and simulations. The aim is to virtualize production processes and optimize them with AI support.

Vera Rubin AI Factory for METI Project FRONTia

The day after the robotics alliance, NVIDIA also announced the construction of a Vera Rubin generation AI factory with the Japanese company Noetra Corp. The facility is to be equipped with 27,500 Rubin GPUs and a capacity of 140 megawatts of computing power to serve the state-run METI project FRONTia. Among the owners of Noetra are the Japanese state and the electronics group Sony.

Huang also used his appearance in Tokyo to warn against Japan falling behind in the area of so-called Physical AI. Japan, once the cradle of modern manufacturing, must now set the course to play a leading role in the next industrial revolution as well. In his words: 'Jetzt baut das Land die KI-Fabriken, die die nächste industrielle Revolution antreiben werden'. Japan is a stronghold of industrial robotics, while Chinese providers are rapidly catching up in terms of unit numbers and software.

Symbolic Appearances and Pop-Star-Like Reception

Huang was accompanied, among others, by Japanese Economy Minister Ryosei Akazawa, who, like the NVIDIA CEO, was dressed in a black leather jacket. Huang joked with Akazawa: 'Ich bin froh, dass wir einen ähnlichen Geschmack haben'. On the role of AI in robotics he said: 'Dank KI werden Roboter intelligent, anpassungsfähig und problemlos einsetzbar' and further: 'Mit KI werden Roboter intelligent, leicht anpassbar und zugänglich'.

On the previous evening, according to reports, Huang had attended an event by an entertainment company in Tokyo's electronics district Akihabara and had been received by onlookers like a star. In his native Taiwan and in many other Asian states, Huang is regarded as a pop-star-like figure, underscoring the cultural backdrop of the Japan tour.

Markets and Competitive Situation

Markets reacted cautiously: in pre-market trading on the day of the announcement, the NVIDIA stock was down 1.35 percent at $209.63, after the previous day's closing price on the NASDAQ had still been $212.50, up 0.33 percent. The robotics news was also accompanied by positive signals from the semiconductor sector: ASML had raised its revenue forecast on Wednesday and announced a capacity expansion; TSMC is, according to reports, heading for a fifth record quarter in a row.

Japan's Robotics Strategy Through 2040

However, observers urge sobriety. Most of the Japanese groups mentioned have so far only declared their intention to join the coalition. Concrete series products are still pending. In addition, Japanese manufacturers are competing directly with Chinese robotics firms, which in recent years have caught up significantly both in unit numbers and in software solutions. Bloomberg accordingly classified the cooperation as an attempt to position Japanese manufacturers in international competition against China.

The Japanese government itself is pursuing the goal of reaching a global market share of more than 30 percent in the area of AI robotics by 2040, as a robotics strategy presented in March 2026 shows. The partnerships with NVIDIA now announced, along with the construction of the Vera Rubin AI factory, are intended to form a central building block of this strategy and at the same time safeguard the country's industrial sovereignty.

Overall, a deepening of the technology-policy axis between the USA and Japan is emerging, with NVIDIA acting as the central hardware and platform partner. Should the planned AI factories go into operation as announced and the control platforms go into series production, Japan could get a second chance in the area of Physical AI to translate its historical strength in manufacturing into the AI age.