Japan firms form AI company to build trillion-parameter model

SoftBank, NEC, Honda and Sony have each taken more than 10% stakes in a newly formed company created to develop a trillion-parameter AI model aimed at controlling robots, autonomous vehicles and industrial machinery rather than powering conversational chatbots.

SoftBank and NEC will lead development of the model. Honda plans to apply the resulting technology to autonomous driving, and Sony will contribute robotics and gaming hardware expertise. Preferred Networks is also involved. A SoftBank executive will serve as president and the company plans to hire about 100 AI engineers.

The company’s name roughly translates to Japan AI Foundation Model Development. Investors include Nippon Steel, Kobe Steel, MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking and Mizuho Bank.

Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization has earmarked roughly ¥1 trillion, about $6.3 billion, in AI support over five years beginning in fiscal 2026. The new firm is expected to apply for that program; NEDO began accepting proposals in late March.

Project backers say training and related data will remain in Japan and will not be processed on foreign cloud platforms.

Developers describe the project as focused on “Physical AI”: models designed to perceive and act in the physical world, controlling robot arms, self-driving vehicles and factory systems. The group intends to train a model with roughly a trillion parameters tuned for real-world control tasks rather than text generation or chat.

The group has set a target timeframe for practical applications around 2030. The company formation was announced Sunday and brings together technology firms, automakers, hardware specialists, banks and steelmakers to concentrate resources on large-scale models for machine control.