NVIDIA Corp. is deepening its footprint in Japan, uniting with the country’s industrial and technology titans to spearhead a massive push into physical AI.
Highlighting the initiative is Cosmos 3 Edge, a 4-billion-parameter “world model” unveiled by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang during his visit to Tokyo. Unlike traditional large language models, world models process a diverse range of physical and visual inputs. Designed to run locally on NVIDIA’s Jetson edge hardware without relying on cloud infrastructure, Cosmos 3 Edge allows robots to perceive their surroundings in real time and can be adapted to specific environments in about a day.
To accelerate adoption, NVIDIA announced the Cosmos Coalition to build open physical AI models. Fujitsu is leading the development of a collaborative control platform alongside robotics pioneers Fanuc, Yaskawa Electric, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries. The platform will integrate NVIDIA’s AI with digital twins, robot simulations, and pre-deployment validation tools. Other major coalition members include Sony, NEC, Hitachi, and SoftBank, the latter is building a physical AI development platform using NVIDIA’s Omniverse.
During a joint press conference, executives highlighted Japan’s acute labor shortage and rapidly aging population as the driving forces behind the alliance. Advanced robots are envisioned to bridge employment gaps, ranging from Kubota’s autonomous agricultural tools to elder-care robots.
“Japan invented modern manufacturing,” Huang said in a statement. “Now, it has the opportunity to reinvent it for the age of intelligent industries.” He cited Japan’s reputation for high precision, safety, and kaizen (continuous improvement) as perfect matches for independent robotics.
The collaboration comes as Tokyo aggressively plays catch-up in the global AI race, where it has trailed the U.S. and China. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government recently announced an ambitious goal to mobilize 370 trillion yen (approximately $2.3 trillion) in public and private investments by 2040, targeting semiconductors, data centers, and physical AI.
Driven by active government promotion, Japan’s AI market is projected to reach $27.9 billion by 2029, attracting heavy investments from U.S. firms like Microsoft Corp., which recently pledged $10 billion to build out local AI infrastructure.
Beyond industrial automation, NVIDIA is expanding its footprint in Japan’s healthcare sector.
The company is scaling up Tokyo-1, an AI-driven drug discovery consortium operated by Mitsui subsidiary Xeureka. Using NVIDIA’s BioNeMo Agent Toolkit, major drugmakers — including Astellas Pharma, Daiichi Sankyo, and Ono Pharmaceutical — are integrating autonomous AI agents to streamline molecular research and clinical workflows.
While the coalition has not committed to a formal joint venture, the initial phase of their collaborative platform is expected to launch later this year. By combining Japan’s legendary manufacturing prowess with state-of-the-art physical AI, the alliance aims to secure the country’s position at the forefront of the next industrial revolution.