(July 16): Japan is planning to buy 27,500 next-generation Rubin chips from Nvidia Corp to build a homegrown foundational artificial intelligence (AI) model for robots.
Newly established Noetra Corp, which has been allocated ¥387.3 billion (US$2.4 billion or $3.08 billion) from government coffers through March of next year, said it will oversee the endeavour and build a large-scale data centre. Dozens of companies including SoftBank Corp, Toyota Motor Corp-backed Preferred Networks Inc and NEC Corp are helping to set up and operate Noetra.
Japan’s order is sizeable, but is small compared with plans by Microsoft Corp to eventually build data centres scaling hundreds of thousands of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin chips.
The initiative is part of a series of efforts by the government to lower its reliance on foreign technology and bolster national security. Japan, which is home to some of the world’s largest industrial robot makers, may be able to build an alternative to US and China AI systems, according to Noetra president Hironobu Tamba, who led the development of SoftBank’s large language model.
“Our goal is to create a genuine third option — one that Japan, and others, can choose,” Tamba said in an interview. Noetra was created to bring the fragmented AI efforts of dozens of companies together, he said.
The venture plans to release an AI model by March next year, followed by regular updates. The longer-term goal will be to release a model tailored for robotics applications within a few years, Tamba said.
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Noetra will draw on engineers from companies including SoftBank, Preferred Networks, NEC and Fujitsu Ltd, which have all developed their own AI models. SoftBank has the Sarashina LLM, Preferred Networks has PLaMo and NEC’s flagship model is called cotomi.
Developing a native physical AI model is central to Japan’s broader ambition to create a leading AI and robotics hub. The government aims to capture more than 30% of the estimated ¥60 trillion global robotics market by 2040.
The race to develop AI models capable of dictating sophisticated robotic movements has intensified globally. For Japan, however, the push is an imperative for a country with a declining population suffering from severe labour shortages.
See also: Science Centre Singapore puts service robots to work in public-facing trial
“Japan has so many good ideas, but not enough workers,” Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang told reporters on Wednesday. “With automation, AI, robotics, the economy can boom again.”
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