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"Japan is missing a new technology, and that new technology is called Physical AI," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said during his visit to Tokyo.
Artificial Intelligence has so far lived inside our phones, laptops and chatbots. Now, Nvidia wants AI to step out into the real world.
Think robots working inside factories, self-driving cars, warehouse machines, delivery bots and smart cameras that can see, think and act on their own. That's what Nvidia calls Physical AI. And if Jensen Huang is right, Japan could become the world's biggest testing ground for it.
The context: over the past few months, Huang has been on what looks like an AI world tour.
He first visited South Korea, then Taiwan, and then spent two days last week in Japan meeting the country's biggest technology companies, government officials and chip suppliers.
The company partnered with companies such as Fanuc, Yaskawa Electric, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Fujitsu, Sony, Hitachi and SoftBank.
In simple words:
- Fanuc builds factory robots.
- Yaskawa makes industrial robots and automation systems.
- Kawasaki Heavy manufactures everything from robots to trains and aircraft.
- Fujitsu develops enterprise technology and AI software.
Together, these companies will use Nvidia's AI models to build smarter robots that can understand their surroundings and perform complex tasks on their own.
Then comes Noetra, a government-backed company that's building Japan's own AI for robots and smart factories with Nvidia's newest chips. It also plans to build one of the world's largest AI data centres, with construction starting in 2027.
The idea is to first build Japanese-language AI models, then multimodal AI that understands text, images, videos and audio, and eventually create AI powerful enough to control real-world machines.
The why: Japan isn't investing in Physical AI just because it sounds futuristic.
The country has one of the world's oldest populations and a shrinking workforce. There simply won't be enough people to work across factories, warehouses and manufacturing plants in the coming decades.
That's where intelligent robots come in.
Japan wants 10 million AI-powered robots working across 18 industries by 2040.
To make that happen, the country plans to invest nearly $65 billion in Physical AI over the coming years.
A partnership that helps both sides: for Nvidia, Japan offers something no other country can.
Even though Japan no longer dominates semiconductor manufacturing like it did in the 1980s, it still produces many of the specialised materials, precision equipment and factory technologies needed to make advanced chips.
Japan, meanwhile, gets access to Nvidia's industry-leading AI hardware and software.
Why it matters: everyone talks about ChatGPT.
But Nvidia believes the next trillion-dollar AI opportunity won't be inside your phone. It'll be inside factories, cars, warehouses and robots.
And if that happens, Japan may become the country where the Physical AI revolution truly begins.
