GMI Cloud is launching a $12 billion sovereign AI infrastructure initiative in Japan.

Announced during the Nvidia GTC event, the initiative will see the launch of an AI Factory for "large-scale physical AI purposes" in Kagoshima, Japan, in partnership with Wistron.

Kagoshima is a seaside city on Japan's Kyushu Island.

The AI factory - or data center - will be located within a development by Kai Shin Digital Infrastructure, itself a joint venture between CDIB Capital and Shin-Etsu Science Industry. Kai Shin Digital Infrastructure first revealed plans to build a data center in Kagoshima in October 2025. It will have an initial capacity of 350MW. Development will start in late 2026 and ultimately aims to establish 1GW of power capacity.

Details about any AI hardware to be deployed at the site have not been shared, but the company is a known partner of Nvidia.

The project will meet sovereignty requirements for Japanese organizations while providing access to AI compute.

"Japan has built some of the world's most sophisticated industrial and manufacturing systems," said Alex Yeh, CEO of GMI Cloud. "The next frontier is ensuring those systems are powered by AI that Japan owns, controls, and can trust. That is exactly what we are here to build."

The data center will be "green and sustainable," according to GMI, though details about how this will be achieved have not been provided. A rendering of the project shows solar panels on the roof of the building.

The "physical AI" applications it seeks to serve include robotics, autonomous vehicles, manufacturing, and industrial infrastructure. Wistron, an electronics manufacturer based in Taiwan, is working with GMI on the project.

"Building a sovereign AI Factory at this scale requires a partner with a strong track record. GMI Cloud's demonstrated experience in deploying the most advanced hardware into production-grade AI infrastructure is exactly what this project demands. Wistron is designated to support that vision with the manufacturing excellence it requires," said David Shen, CTO, Wistron Corporation.

GMI will use the Vast AI Operating System for its sovereign AI infrastructure platform.

In late 2025, GMI revealed plans for a $500 million data center in Taiwan, set to house around 7,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs across 96 racks. It will have a power capacity of around 16MW. GMI also operates data centers in the US, elsewhere in Taiwan, and in Singapore, Thailand, and Japan. It is currently seeking to develop a 50MW data center in the US.

GMI launched in 2023 and is headquartered in California. It originally operated as a data center servicing Bitcoin mining; however, the company has since pivoted to AI. In November 2024, it secured $82m in Series A funding. According to its website, it currently operates from five data centers.