Jakarta, INTI - Nvidia is collaborating with Japanese technology consortium Noetra to build a 140-megawatt AI factory. The factory will serve as the primary computing infrastructure for the Japanese government's FRONTia program, which focuses on the development of robotics, industrial automation, and digital twins.
The AI factory will utilize the Nvidia DSX data center platform and Vera Rubin NVL72 server racks. The project will receive initial funding of JPY 387.3 billion, or approximately USD 2.4 billion, through fiscal year 2030. The long-term investment target is JPY 1 trillion, or approximately USD 6.1 billion.
Components and Estimated Costs
To support the training of AI models with trillions of parameters, the facility will be equipped with approximately 27,500 Rubin GPUs and 13,750 Vera CPUs. These components will be housed in 382 Vera Rubin NVL72 racks connected via a Spectrum-X Ethernet network.
Each server rack will consist of 72 Rubin GPUs and 36 Vera CPUs, integrated with a system designed for high-bandwidth NVLink communications.
With a single VR200 NVL72 system estimated to cost between USD 5–7 million, the total cost of the rack hardware is estimated to be in the range of USD 1.9–2.7 billion, excluding the cost of memory and cooling systems.
The Rubin chip architecture-based system will only enter mass production in the second half of this year, so the construction of the AI factory is expected to proceed in stages.
Aimed for AI Robotics Tailored to Domestic Needs
Unlike typical commercial supercomputing projects, this facility is designed as an integrated AI computing platform encompassing chips, networks, systems, and software for training open, multimodal foundation models. These models are designed to interact directly with robots and various physical systems, rather than simply processing text or images.
The Japanese government also plans to widely distribute the model's pre-trained weights to domestic developers and companies. This will allow the technology to be tailored to domestic companies’ various needs, including logistics and industrial applications.
The Noetra consortium, which won the Japanese government tender, is led by SoftBank Corp., Sony, NEC, and Honda, and is supported by 44 other companies and organizations. Through the FRONTia program, Japan targets the development of reasoning models by 2026, omni-modal models capable of processing text, video, and audio by 2028, and AI with physical-world understanding and spatial awareness for robots in factories and hospitals by 2030.
These initiatives align with Japan's AI Robotics Strategy, released in March 2026. The strategy targets a market share of over 30% of the global AI robotics market by 2040, with a potential value of USD 133 billion. Through this significant investment, the Japanese government is positioning large-scale physical AI computing as a national strategic asset that needs to be independently developed and controlled.
Conclusion
Nvidia and Japanese technology consortium Noetra will build a 140-megawatt AI factory to support the Japanese government's FRONTia program. The program will focus on robotics, industrial automation, and digital twins. The project has an initial budget of JPY 387.3 billion through 2030, with a long-term investment target of JPY 1 trillion. This initiative is part of Japan's strategy to capture more than 30% of the global AI robotics market by 2040 and build national AI computing.
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