- 13,750 Vera CPUs and 27,500 Rubin GPUs will power computing at Nvidia Vera Rubin AI Factory
- The project will be the world’s first national AI infrastructure for physical AI.
- Partnering with Noetra Corp, Nvidia Provides Hardware to Power Japan’s FRONTia Project
Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) is supporting a partnership between Noetra Corp and Nvidia to lay the foundation for its national artificial intelligence initiative, Project FRONTia.
Noetra Corp, which comprises NEC, Sony, Honda, SoftBank Corp and is backed by 44 other companies and organizations, won a tender on June 30, 2026 to run FRONTia until 2030, with up to 1 trillion yen (about $6.1 billion) expected to be invested in the project over the five years.
Japan sees FRONTia as providing the heart of its sovereign AI ecosystem for industry, providing computing power for the development of advanced multimodal core models that can be used to drive physical AI. Robotics in industry and healthcare can potentially benefit from this, along with the development of superior AI agents and digital twins.
What is the FRONTia Project?
Aiming to foster collaboration between global technology leaders and Japan’s manufacturing expertise, and leverage real-world industrial data, Project FRONTia (referring to the project “Development of Multimodal Base Models for AI Robotics and Physical AI”) is described as “the core of the country’s physical AI ecosystem,” by Ryosei Akazawa, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan.
“By fostering collaboration between Japan and leading global innovators, including NVIDIA, and leveraging Japan’s strengths such as its local expertise and manufacturing technology infrastructure, we will build highly reliable multi-modal foundation models and contribute to solving global societal challenges.”
When built, the Nvidia Vera Rubin AI facility will provide Noetra’s multimodal core models to enterprises and domestic model developers. Nvidia’s AI-related software models and libraries will also be available.
However, there has been some criticism of the FRONTia Project. Concerned parties have highlighted the lack of financial transparency on the part of Noetra and the Japanese government, as well as the presence of Nvidia as a partner, with the American company seen as a strategic rival. Meanwhile, the huge energy costs associated with AI installations are once again seen as an unnecessary problem.
“Japan invented modern manufacturing. Now it is building the AI factories that will power the next industrial revolution,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia.
“NVIDIA is honored to partner with Japan and its industry leaders to build the AI infrastructure that will power the country’s industries, its economy, and a new generation of innovation.”
Is the world ready for physical AI?
The impact of AI on the creative industries has been widely discussed, but its potential for processes beyond the “generative” – such as in physical space – has avoided scrutiny. To date, physical AI (the integration of AI with physical hardware such as robots, vehicles, or industrial machines) has not been able to scale as quickly as generative AIs with increasingly deeper LLMs.
Predicting the next word is much easier than, say, predicting changing terrain for an autonomous machine, and without the delicate motor skills of a human being, no process can be fully automated.
This is a problem for physical AI, and investing money in developing solutions like NVIDIA Vera Rubin’s AI factory will surely have a direct impact on the workforce. A successful physical AI project means more robot automation and fewer physical jobs.
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