Noetra

AI · Robotics · Sovereign AI

Launch

Noetra launches Japan-developed multimodal AI model backed by Sony, SoftBank

The venture taps a Japanese government program worth more than $8 billion aimed at cutting reliance on foreign AI models.

• Noetra Corp. launched full-scale R&D for a Japan-developed multimodal foundation model meant to underpin AI-enabled robots and physical AI, with Sony, SoftBank, NEC and Honda as founding member companies and investors.
• Noetra's R&D organization is staffed by engineers seconded from its four core backers plus Japan's AIST research institute and AI lab Preferred Networks, pooling homegrown expertise instead of licensing a foreign model.
• The roadmap runs in phases: a Japanese-language reasoning model starting fiscal 2026, an omni-modal system handling text, images, video and audio by fiscal 2028, and a 'Real-world Native AI' for robotics by fiscal 2030.
• Noetra will build AI computing infrastructure with roughly 27,500 Nvidia Rubin GPUs in partnership with Nvidia, with construction starting April 2027 and operations beginning June 2028; earlier development runs on Japan-based cloud capacity.
• Japan's industry ministry has selected Noetra for a domestic physical-AI foundation model project worth over 380 billion yen (about $2.34B) this fiscal year, part of a broader 1 trillion yen (about $6.15B) support package through fiscal 2030.
• Noetra President and CEO Tamba Hironobu told NHK the physical AI field remains competitive enough for Japan to lead, citing the country's manufacturing craftsmanship as its edge.
• The project signals Japan's industrial giants and government are jointly betting on sovereign AI infrastructure to avoid dependence on US and Chinese foundation models as robotics and physical AI near commercial deployment.