Hitachi

Nvidia unveils Cosmos 3 Edge, expands Japan AI ecosystem

Nvidia introduced Cosmos 3 Edge, a world model aimed at robots and vision AI agents, and announced an expansion of its physical AI ecosystem in Japan. The rollout follows the May launch of Cosmos 3 and coincides with CEO Jensen Huang’s visit to Japan, where Nvidia said it is forming a coalition with Japanese industrial firms including Fujitsu, Hitachi and Kawasaki Heavy Industries. Nvidia also said it will expand into healthcare and biotech in Japan via agentic AI initiatives, highlighting the Tokyo-1 drug discovery consortium operated by Xeureka (a Mitsui subsidiary) and the use of Nvidia’s BioNeMo Agent Toolkit. Major Japanese drugmakers Astellas, Daiichi Sankyo and Ono Pharmaceutical were named as users of Nvidia’s biology toolkit. The article places these developments in the context of broader AI investment in Japan, including Microsoft’s $10 billion commitment and SoftBank activity.

Microsoft Plans $10B Japan AI Push with SoftBank

Microsoft said it will invest $10 billion in Japan between 2026 and 2029 to build AI infrastructure, strengthen cybersecurity and train 1 million engineers and developers by 2030. The company has begun discussions with Japanese cloud provider Sakura Internet and SoftBank to develop AI computing resources — including GPUs located in Japan — and announced partnerships with other major Japanese IT firms such as NTT Data, NEC, Fujitsu and Hitachi. The move, announced during Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith’s visit to Tokyo where he met Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, aims to enable data processing inside Japan and support development of domestic large language models. Sakura Internet shares jumped about 20% after the announcement; SoftBank Group and SoftBank Corp. saw smaller gains.

Hitachi iQ Boosts Responsible AI with New Capabilities

Hitachi Vantara announced expanded capabilities across its Hitachi iQ portfolio to accelerate enterprise, on-premises agentic AI deployments. Enhancements include new AI blueprints and multi-agent coordination in Hitachi iQ Studio, broader NVIDIA GPU and system support (Blackwell series and an MGX-based 2U system), deeper integration with Hammerspace using the Model Context Protocol (MCP), and time-aware dataset navigation for explainability. The updates aim to provide validated infrastructure (VSP One), data orchestration, and governance controls to help organizations move AI from pilot to production while maintaining data sovereignty, security, and performance. Hitachi plans to showcase Hitachi iQ at NVIDIA GTC 2026.