NVIDIA and four prominent Japanese industrial automation companies have announced an expansion of their collaboration in robotics development, advancing the strategic vision of CEO Jensen Huang in the artificial intelligence hardware sector.
The companies—Fujitsu, Fanuc, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, and Yaskawa Electric—are joining the Cosmos Alliance, an initiative spearheaded by NVIDIA. This consortium, comprising businesses and research institutions, aims to accelerate the adoption of what the industry terms "physical AI" using NVIDIA's platform. Physical AI encompasses a broad range of applications, including humanoid robots, factory automation systems, autonomous vehicles, smart buildings, and intelligent rail systems. Additionally, Hitachi, NEC, Komatsu, and Kubota will also become members of the alliance.
This week, NVIDIA dispatched a high-level delegation led by co-founder Jensen Huang to Japan to promote the concept of building a "physical AI" ecosystem and to foster new business partnerships. This ecosystem seeks to integrate AI chips, robotics hardware, and more advanced software, enabling robots and autonomous machines to learn from and adapt to real-world interactions continuously.
The announcement of this partnership follows NVIDIA's recent launch of a suite of new technologies designed to speed up robotics development. The US chipmaker unveiled Cosmos 3-H, a streamlined version of its world foundation model for physical AI development that can operate on edge computing devices.
NVIDIA highlighted that Japan's longstanding strengths in industrial automation, precision manufacturing, and mechatronics position it favorably to lead the next wave of robotics innovation. However, amid intensifying competition from US and Chinese companies, Japan's leading edge in the robotics market has seen some erosion in recent years. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has recently reinvigorated efforts to boost investment in AI and robotics, with a goal for Japanese firms to capture 30% of the global AI robotics market and achieve an industry scale of approximately 20 trillion yen (about $123 billion) by 2040.
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