NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang visited Japan to galvanize a national push toward physical AI and robotics, partnering with gove
During a week-long visit to Tokyo, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang engaged with Japan's technology leaders to showcase the AI ecosystem's latest advancements. Rather than begin with formal meetings, Huang made an unannounced visit to Happo-en, a traditional Japanese garden in central Tokyo that now houses Studio Koku, a modern event space. There, he found himself in a room full of robots at NVIDIA's Build-a-Claw event, where Japanese developers were using open models and NVIDIA's platform to construct robots capable of picking up objects. Huang spent time on the floor with the builders, watching the technology in action.
Speaking to the assembled developers, Huang reflected on technological revolution. "Forty years ago was the beginning of the PC revolution. Now, forty years later, instead of a personal computer, you can now have your own personal AI," he said. "I'm happy that all of you are here to build your own claw, your own agent." He awarded two autographed NVIDIA DGX Spark personal AI supercomputers to lucky draw winners, emphasizing the machines as a foundation for building personal AI systems.
At a subsequent press event, Huang addressed Japan's historical strengths in precision and large-scale manufacturing. "Japan has historically been very good at precision manufacturing and very large-scale manufacturing, but now we have AI. You can combine the two technologies and create robotics," he told reporters. He highlighted how AI and robotics could address Japan's worker shortage. "With AI and robotics, you can augment the workers you have and increase national productivity. AI is manufacturing intelligence. It's manufacturing all the time, and it's running all the time."
Huang hosted more than thirty senior executives from sixteen of Japan's premier supply chain companies at an izakaya in Tokyo's Kanda district. The gathering included leaders from ADVANTEST Corporation, Tokyo Electron, KYOCERA Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric, Murata Manufacturing, Panasonic, Renesas Electronics Corporation, Sumitomo Electric Industries, TAIYO YUDEN, TDK Corporation, Kioxia Corporation, Mitsui, Asahi Kasei, Nittobo, Shin-Etsu Chemical and Shibaura. They discussed building an AI-led future for Japan and the world.
On Thursday, Huang met with the CEOs of Fujitsu, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, FANUC and Yaskawa at Tokyo restaurant Tonkatsu Fumizen. These four companies build robots and industrial systems deployed across factories in Japan and globally. At the subsequent press event, Takahito Tokita, president and CEO of Fujitsu Limited, remarked, "Just before coming into this venue, the five of us enjoyed a wonderful tonkatsu lunch together. Although we come from different countries and industries, we share the same values. We make business decisions not only for the benefit of our own companies, but also with the sustainable development of our industries and ultimately the world in mind."
At Prince Park Tower, positioned in the shadow of Tokyo Tower, Japan launched a government-backed Physical AI Initiative with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry. The initiative will develop open multimodal foundation models for AI agents, digital twins, robotics and physical AI applications.
Later, Huang attended an NVIDIA Japan AI ecosystem celebration at Happo-en, where he addressed startups, partners, government officials, policymakers and press. He and Japan's Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology offered a toast. The gathering represented the full spectrum of Japan's AI ecosystem from early-stage founders to the institutions shaping Japan's AI policy.
During his visit, Huang met with SoftBank Corp. President and CEO Junichi Miyakawa and leadership to align on AI-native networks and physical AI development in Japan. SoftBank demonstrated its use of NVIDIA's full technology stack, from GB200-class AI infrastructure and NVIDIA RTX PRO-based AI RAN with the NVIDIA AI Aerial platform to NVIDIA Nemotron-based large telecom models, transforming its communications network into an intelligence delivery network. The companies confirmed joint initiatives to drive Japanese innovation using open models such as NVIDIA Nemotron alongside SB Intuitions' generative AI model series Sarashina, while advancing physical AI with partners including Yaskawa Electric Corporation using NVIDIA Cosmos and Isaac GR00T.
In healthcare and biopharma, Japanese companies are deploying NVIDIA technology across autonomous surgical robots, AI-accelerated CT systems, agentic drug discovery platforms and virtual cell models. Japan's pharmaceutical leaders are uniting around AI-powered drug discovery through Tokyo-1, an AI drug discovery consortium and platform operated by Xeureka. Eisai joined in April, bringing together Astellas, Daiichi Sankyo and Ono Pharmaceuticals, all advancing drug discovery using NVIDIA BioNeMo. Astellas has deployed nearly all BioNeMo NIM microservices within NVIDIA's digital biology portfolio and is running BioNeMo Agent Toolkit, NVIDIA's open platform that transforms AI agents into autonomous life sciences scientists.