Japan just fired the starting gun on its most ambitious supercomputing project yet. At a ceremony in Tokyo today, RIKEN announced FugakuNEXT, a next-generation AI-HPC hybrid system built through an unprecedented three-way partnership with Fujitsu and NVIDIA that could reshape how the world thinks about sovereign computing infrastructure.
RIKEN, Japan's premier research institute, just unveiled the blueprint for the world's next breakthrough in scientific computing. The FugakuNEXT International Initiative, announced at a launch ceremony in Tokyo today, represents more than just another supercomputer upgrade—it's Japan's definitive answer to the global race for AI-powered scientific sovereignty.
The timing couldn't be more strategic. NVIDIA stock jumped 2.3% in after-hours trading as news broke of the three-way partnership, while Fujitsu shares rallied on confirmation that its FUJITSU-MONAKA-X processors will anchor the system. The collaboration marks the first major deployment of NVIDIA's new NVLink Fusion technology, which enables unprecedented bandwidth between Fujitsu CPUs and NVIDIA's architecture.
"This isn't just building a faster computer—we're reimagining how AI and traditional simulation can work together to solve Japan's most pressing challenges," RIKEN President Makoto Gonokami told attendees at today's ceremony, according to NVIDIA's official blog post. The comment underscores a fundamental shift from raw computational power to specialized AI-enhanced scientific workflows.
The announcement comes exactly one year after NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's highly publicized Tokyo visit, where he challenged Japan to "put NVIDIA's latest technologies to work building its own AI, on its own soil, with its own infrastructure." FugakuNEXT represents Japan's direct response to that call, leveraging NVIDIA's complete software ecosystem including CUDA-X libraries, cuQuantum for quantum simulation, and NeMo for large language model development.
What sets FugakuNEXT apart isn't just its hybrid AI-HPC architecture—it's the collaborative design approach. Unlike traditional procurement models, RIKEN awarded the contract early in the development process, allowing all three partners to co-design the system architecture from the ground up. "We're working side by side to shape this system for Japan's most critical research priorities," explained Ian Buck, NVIDIA's vice president of hyperscale and high-performance computing, who attended the ceremony in person.
