Hitachi and FANUC Partner on Physical AI, Aim for Practical Use Next Fiscal Year, NHK Reports

NHK reported on Oct. 7 that Hitachi, Ltd. and FANUC have partnered in the field of physical AI, in which AI autonomously makes decisions and operates robots and other equipment, and aim to put it into practical use next fiscal year. The report also said major companies have been forming partnerships in the physical AI field.

Hitachi, Ltd. and FANUC both operate in areas where the ability to implement industrial equipment and control systems is important. If the partnership is confirmed, it would point to a trend of advancing physical AI toward practical use through collaboration rather than standalone development. NHK’s statement that the companies “aim to put it into practical use next fiscal year” suggests a focus on moving beyond research toward deployment.

What is new in this report is that Hitachi, Ltd. and FANUC, two major companies with different strengths in industrial equipment and control, are partnering on physical AI. However, NHK’s article excerpt does not indicate what they will jointly develop, which processes it will address or where it will be put into practical use. For now, what is confirmed is limited to the partnership and the timeline of aiming for practical use next fiscal year; details remain sparse. In our related coverage, Hitachi reached a basic agreement on Sept. 29 with Agile Robots SE on a co-creation partnership to develop the “brain” for AI robotics. As we reported in Hitachi and Agile Robots reach basic agreement on co-creation, Hitachi had signaled that it would strengthen its control and decision-making layers through external partnerships. The FANUC partnership can be seen as an extension of that approach, broadening the connections for control, implementation and on-site application. On the FANUC side, as FANUC demonstrates AI welding agent shows, its AI demonstrations have already focused on applications close to the factory floor. The key question is whether this partnership can move technology from the demonstration stage to mass production and implementation. Structurally, physical AI is not simply a software update; it depends on the integration of robots, control systems, peripheral equipment and on-site data. The value of a partnership is therefore likely to hinge less on performance comparisons than on how extensively the technology can be deployed on existing equipment and integrated into existing industrial robots. The Hitachi-FANUC combination suggests possible applications in factories and equipment maintenance, but NHK’s article did not identify target industries, customers or conditions for mass production. Unresolved questions include what constitutes practical use, which models will be covered, how training data will be handled, how responsibilities will be divided and what maintenance arrangements will apply at mass-production scale. In particular, the original report does not make clear whether practical use next fiscal year means unveiling a prototype, beginning operations at a limited number of sites or commercializing a product. Please consult the original report for details.

In Japan, a key question is how much leadership companies with existing foundations in industrial robots, control equipment and factory infrastructure can exercise in implementing physical AI. The report suggests that the Hitachi-FANUC combination could provide a path toward that implementation. But because the specifics of practical use remain unclear, it will be important to determine where competitive strengths will lie: in control software, the robots themselves or on-site data.