--- title: Noetra’s CEO calls his robot AI startup a ‘last chance’... description: Hironobu Tamba, former SoftBank AI engineer, now leads Noetra, a Tokyo-based startup developing a foundation model specifically for robots rather than... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/noetra-s-ceo-calls-his-robot-ai-startup-a-last-chance-for-japan-cwqcbcgop twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Noetra’s CEO calls his robot AI startup a ‘last chance’ for Japan | daily.dev og:description: Hironobu Tamba, former SoftBank AI engineer, now leads Noetra, a Tokyo-based startup developing a foundation model specifically for robots rather than... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/noetra-s-ceo-calls-his-robot-ai-startup-a-last-chance-for-japan-cwqcbcgop og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/cWqCbCGOp.png og:image:alt: Noetra’s CEO calls his robot AI startup a ‘last chance’ for Japan og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Noetra’s CEO calls his robot AI startup a ‘last chance’ for Japan **[The Next Web](https://daily.dev/sources/tnw)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Hironobu Tamba, former SoftBank AI engineer, now leads Noetra, a Tokyo-based startup developing a foundation model specifically for robots rather than chatbots. Backed by up to ¥1 trillion (~$6bn) in Japanese government funding, Noetra has enlisted Sony, SoftBank, NEC, Honda, and 44 other companies. The roadmap targets a Japanese-language reasoning model by fiscal 2027, an omni-modal system by 2028, and 'Real-world Native AI' capable of understanding physical properties by 2030. Training will run on the FRONTia data center powered by 27,500 Nvidia Rubin GPUs. Japan's METI aims to deploy 10 million AI-powered robots across 18 fields by 2040 and capture 30%+ of the global physical AI market. Tamba frames the venture as Japan's last chance to lead in AI, leveraging the country's existing ~70% share of the industrial robotics market rather than competing in the language-model race it largely missed. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [In Japan, the robot isn’t coming for your job; it’s filling the one nobody wants](https://daily.dev/posts/in-japan-the-robot-isn-t-coming-for-your-job-it-s-filling-the-one-nobody-wants-vxywey8ap) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Robotics roadmaps from around the world spotlight of the month: Japan](https://daily.dev/posts/robotics-roadmaps-from-around-the-world-spotlight-of-the-month-japan-an0j9jvvs) · Robohub · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son says superintelligence in the wrong hands could be “super dangerous”](https://daily.dev/posts/softbank-s-masayoshi-son-says-superintelligence-in-the-wrong-hands-could-be-super-dangerous--fahlqdnzu) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [NVIDIA Nemotron 2 Nano 9B Japanese: 日本のソブリンAIを支える最先端小規模言語モデル](https://daily.dev/posts/nvidia-nemotron-2-nano-9b-japanese-ai--jj2kauaop) · Hugging Face · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#nvidia](https://daily.dev/tags/nvidia), [#robotics](https://daily.dev/tags/robotics) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/noetra-s-ceo-calls-his-robot-ai-startup-a-last-chance-for-japan-cwqcbcgop) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Noetra’s CEO calls his robot AI startup a ‘last chance’ for Japan","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/noetra-s-ceo-calls-his-robot-ai-startup-a-last-chance-for-japan-cwqcbcgop","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/noetra-s-ceo-calls-his-robot-ai-startup-a-last-chance-for-japan-cwqcbcgop"},"datePublished":"2026-07-22T09:36:46.466Z","dateModified":"2026-07-22T09:37:42.437Z","description":"Hironobu Tamba, former SoftBank AI engineer, now leads Noetra, a Tokyo-based startup developing a foundation model specifically for robots rather than...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/7b12d21a719ba554c818a3e5944b73b4?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/7b12d21a719ba554c818a3e5944b73b4?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"The Next Web","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Next Web","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tnw","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tnw"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/noetra-s-ceo-calls-his-robot-ai-startup-a-last-chance-for-japan-cwqcbcgop","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"nvidia,robotics","timeRequired":"PT4M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Next Web","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tnw"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Noetra’s CEO calls his robot AI startup a ‘last chance’ for Japan"}]} ```