Woofun AI reports that the Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will provide 387.3 billion yen (approximately $2.383 billion) as a development commission fee for the 2026 fiscal year. This funding supports the establishment of Noetra, a new company led by SoftBank and backed by NEC, Honda, and Sony Group, dedicated to creating domestically produced artificial intelligence basic models.

The initiative, selected under the Japan New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, aims to enhance the competitiveness of Japan's manufacturing sector through physical AI research that integrates robotics and AI technology. Noetra will focus on developing models with advanced Japanese language reasoning and multimodal recognition capabilities for images, videos, audio, and physical spaces.