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Finalized National-Level AI Factory Cooperation, Gave Fans Red Bean Cake
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NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang recently visited Tokyo, bringing multiple cooperation plans to Japan's tech industry and attracting widespread attention with his personal charm. On Wednesday local time, Huang appeared at a traditional izakaya in Tokyo's Kanda area, wearing his iconic leather jacket, drawing a large crowd. In Japan, Huang is affectionately known as 'Leather Jacket Guy' (Japanese nickname 'kawa-jan'). The core outcome of this trip was announced on Thursday: NVIDIA announced a partnership with Noetra, a national-level AI enterprise in Japan. Noetra is jointly funded by giants such as SoftBank, NEC, Sony, and Honda, with support from the Japanese government. The two parties will jointly build an 'AI factory' equipped with 27,500 GPUs, the world's first national-level AI infrastructure for the robotics industry, aimed at providing large-scale computing power support for Japan's robotics sector.
This cooperation marks a key step for Japan in AI infrastructure construction. NVIDIA will work closely with Noetra, leveraging its leading GPU technology and CUDA ecosystem to provide the computing power needed for training and inference at the factory. Huang stated that this AI factory will drive innovation in Japan's robotics, autonomous driving, and smart manufacturing fields. The Japanese government also sees the project as an important measure to revitalize the domestic semiconductor and AI industries, as the AI factory can serve not only local companies but also attract global partners.
During his visit, Huang also went to Akihabara in Tokyo and visited a venue converted from an old Sega game arcade. He expressed gratitude to Sega, recalling that in the 1990s, Sega provided $5 million in cooperation funds to the then-startup NVIDIA, helping it overcome financial difficulties. This gesture highlighted Huang's appreciation for early supporters. Additionally, he attended NVIDIA's Build-a-Claw event and exchanged ideas on robotics technology with developers.
Compared to public itinerary, Huang's after-work 'food tour' attracted even more attention. Netizens spotted him dining at Yakiton Sankichi, a chain izakaya in Tokyo, where he enjoyed motsunabe (offal hotpot) and an extra-large portion of fries called 'baka-mori.' At the same table were executives from multiple Japanese tech companies, including Kioxia, Tokyo Electron, Shin-Etsu Chemical, Sumitomo Electric, Taiyo Yuden, and Ajinomoto. After dinner, Huang stepped out of the restaurant, personally handed out traditional Japanese sweetsâred bean cakesâto waiting fans, drawing cheers.
Huang's image as a 'gourmet CEO' has long been well-known. In May this year, he praised 'so delicious' when eating zhajiangmian (noodles with fried sauce) on the streets of Beijing. Last year in South Korea, he ate Korean fried chicken with executives from Samsung and Hyundai Motor, becoming a hot topic when a photographer suddenly appeared. Earlier, he was also captured enjoying street food in Vietnam, Hong Kong, and other places.
For NVIDIA, Huang's Tokyo visit not only strengthened cooperation with Japan's industrial sector but also enhanced brand affinity through his personal charm. In the future, as the AI factory project progresses, NVIDIA's layout in the robotics field will further deepen. Analysts believe that in the global AI arms race, Japan is accelerating its digital transformation by leveraging NVIDIA's technological advantages, and Huang's culinary explorations may become a unique symbol for corporate marketing.
Currently, the specific location and construction timeline of the AI factory have not been announced, but Japanese media speculate it may be located in the Kanto or Kansai industrial zones. NVIDIA stated that the factory will adopt the latest Hopper architecture GPUs and be equipped with efficient cooling systems, expected to be operational in phases before 2025. At that time, Japan's robotics industry is expected to gain computing resources comparable to those of large cloud service providers.
