MAIZURU, Japan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 29, 2026--
Ubitus K.K. (Headquarters: Shinjuku, Tokyo; Representative Director & CEO: Wesley Kuo), a global leader in cloud streaming and AI solutions, today announced that it will hold a land signing ceremony and press conference with Maizuru City, Kyoto Prefecture, on January 29, 2026.
At the event, Ubitus will officially unveil its comprehensive plan to construct an AI Data Center in Maizuru City, marking the company’s transition into the physical construction phase of its initiative to build a top-tier AI GPU center in Japan.
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This land agreement represents the first major milestone following Ubitus’ selection for a large-scale investment grant from Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), under which the company committed to building Japan’s leading AI GPU infrastructure. It also symbolizes a significant step forward in collaboration between the central government, local governments, and the private sector to advance AI infrastructure development in Japan.
Maizuru City AI Data Center: The First Step Toward a Top-Tier AI GPU Center in Japan
The planned AI Data Center will be located in Maizuru City, Kyoto Prefecture, on a site spanning approximately 2.3 hectares (around 23,000 square meters). The site offers favorable land conditions and infrastructure readiness, with proximity to port and logistics facilities, making it well suited for the development of high-density, high-reliability AI computing infrastructure.
In terms of development approach, the Maizuru City AI Data Center will adopt a phased construction strategy.
Phase 1 will focus on building the data center and progressively deploying core facilities and operational capabilities. Phase 2 will expand capacity in response to the evolving demands of generative AI and large language models, supporting medium- to long-term growth in compute requirements.
This flexible expansion plan ensures that the AI Data Center can scale steadily in line with industry demand while maintaining operational efficiency and long-term sustainability.
Based on current plans, construction is expected to begin in 2026, with major development targeted for completion within 2027.
Next-Generation AI Compute Core Powered by NVIDIA Blackwell × NeoCloud
The Maizuru City AI Data Center will fully adopt NVIDIA’s latest-generation Blackwell GPU architecture, specifically designed to support high-efficiency training and inference for generative AI and large language models. The platform supports high-density GPU deployment and sustained large-scale workloads, positioning the facility among the few in Japan capable of meeting next-generation AI compute demands.
The overall computing architecture will be centered on NeoCloud, which features hierarchical scheduling, distributed computing, and flexible resource management. This design enables dynamic allocation of GPU resources based on regional, industry-specific, and project-level AI needs—enhancing compute efficiency while reducing latency and avoiding the bottlenecks associated with centralized architectures.
Through the deep integration of NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs and the NeoCloud architecture, the Maizuru City AI Data Center will deliver high scalability and system resilience, serving as a critical compute foundation for the long-term development of Japan’s AI industry.
Why Maizuru City: A Strategic City for the AI Era
Ubitus selected Maizuru City as a key location for its AI Data Center based on the city’s multiple strengths essential for AI infrastructure development, including:
Together, these factors make Maizuru City an ideal location that balances stability, scalability, and long-term operational requirements. They also provide critical support for Ubitus’ broader vision of building cross-regional GPU infrastructure across Japan.
Long-Term AI Collaboration with the Japanese Government: From Model Development to Infrastructure Deployment
The Maizuru City AI Data Center project builds upon Ubitus’ long-term AI strategy in Japan, spanning from model development to the deployment of compute infrastructure.
2024 | Selected for METI’s “GENIAC” Program: Development of a 405B East Asia Large Language Model
Under the GENIAC program, Ubitus developed a 405-billion-parameter (405B) large language model optimized for East Asian languages, supporting Japanese, Traditional Chinese, and English. The model has been applied across cultural, tourism, and educational domains, demonstrating strong multilingual comprehension performance in multiple benchmark evaluations.
2025 | Launch of a Leading Tourism and Cultural AI Language Model in Japan
Building on the 405B model, Ubitus introduced an AI solution integrating Japanese cultural and local knowledge. In Maizuru City, the AI virtual guide “Chokimaru” was deployed to provide real-time multilingual Q&A, guided tours, and translation services in Japanese, English, and Chinese—bringing AI applications into real-world tourism settings.
2026 | Advancement of Cross-Regional GPU Infrastructure (NeoCloud)
With NeoCloud at its core, Ubitus is constructing a GPU computing environment capable of dynamically scaling to meet regional demands, gradually forming a highly resilient and efficient nationwide AI compute network.
Looking Ahead
Looking forward, Ubitus will continue to deepen its technological and industrial collaboration in Japan with NeoCloud at the center of its strategy. Through the construction and operation of AI infrastructure, the company aims to create local employment opportunities in technical and operational roles, foster talent development, and support regional industrial upgrading.
At the same time, Ubitus will build scalable and flexible AI computing infrastructure, strengthen localized deployment capabilities, and lower barriers for industries and local governments across Japan to adopt AI. This will accelerate real-world AI applications in tourism, culture, education, healthcare, and enterprise sectors.
Through its dual-track strategy of “AI model development × compute infrastructure deployment,” Ubitus will continue to inject long-term, scalable innovation momentum into Japan’s and East Asia’s AI ecosystem.
About Ubitus
As a member of the NVIDIA Connect program, Ubitus leverages NVIDIA’s support and cutting-edge GPU technology to accelerate AI innovation. The company delivers advanced AI solutions, including UbiGPT (a large language model), UbiONE (an AI-powered avatar creation platform), and UbiArt (an image generation tool), providing customized solutions to meet the diverse needs of various industries.
As a cloud gaming pioneer, Ubitus enables Nintendo and other game companies to establish cloud gaming services and supports the global streaming of multimedia content, including interactive and virtual reality experiences.
Ubitus will launch its Maizuru City AI Data Center project on January 29, marking the first step toward building a top-tier AI GPU center in Japan. Powered by NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs and NeoCloud, the project strengthens Japan’s AI infrastructure and regional development.
KISKUNHALAS, Hungary (AP) — Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar says a crucial election next week where he's facing pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will be a “referendum” on whether Hungary continues on its drift toward Eastern autocracies, or can retake its place among the democratic societies of Europe.
Magyar, once an Orbán ally, poses the most serious threat to the nationalist prime minister's hold on power since he took office in 2010.
In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Magyar said the European Union's longest-serving leader has led the country on a “180-degree turn” in recent years, endangering its Western orientation while cozying up to Moscow.
Yet despite that drift, “Hungarians still see that Hungary’s peace and development are guaranteed by membership of the European Union and NATO,” Magyar said. “I think this really will be a referendum on our country's place in the world.”
Magyar spoke to the AP on Thursday following an election rally by his center-right Tisza party in Kiskunhalas, a small city of around 25,000 on Hungary's southern great plain. It was one of hundreds of rallies he's held in settlements big and small across the country, a campaign blitz that has him visiting up to six towns a day ahead of the April 12 election.
Orbán has gained a reputation as an inveterate disruptor within the EU for his frequent vetoes of important decisions. He has campaigned by sounding the alarm on a myriad of external dangers he says are threatening Hungarians — the war in Ukraine, a cabal of EU bureaucrats and financial elites aligned against Hungary, and an immigration crisis ever on the horizon.
Magyar, who is leading in most polls, has focused on issues that affect voters' everyday lives, like Hungary’s faltering state health care and public transportation sectors and what he describes as rampant government corruption.
At each of his rallies, he charges Orbán and his nationalist-populist Fidesz party with making Hungary the “poorest and most corrupt” country in the EU — and depicts a “peaceful, humane and functioning” country that is within reach.
Yet alongside that domestic message, Magyar has increasingly portrayed Orbán’s brinksmanship with the EU, and his drift toward Russia, as matters of critical importance for the country’s future.
“I think that Tisza will have an overwhelming electoral victory, because even Fidesz voters do not want our country to be a Russian puppet state, a colony, an assembly plant, instead of belonging to Europe,” he said.
Magyar and his party's meteoric rise caught many Hungarians by surprise. For nearly a decade and a half, a broad slate of fractured opposition parties had tried and failed to mount a serious threat to Orbán's hold on power.
While opposition politicians often slammed Orbán during debates in parliament, they rarely made efforts to win over his base of support in the rural countryside. Frustrated after a string of bitter losses, many opposition voters descended into political apathy.
Magyar, a 45-year-old lawyer and former Fidesz insider, was previously married to an Orbán ally who served as Hungary’s justice minister. After working for several years as a diplomat in Brussels, he returned to Hungary and took positions in state institutions, gaining familiarity with the workings of Orbán's system.
But then, in the wake of a political scandal in 2024 involving a presidential pardon to an accomplice in a child sexual abuse case, Magyar publicly broke with Orbán's party, accusing it of overseeing entrenched corruption and capturing Hungary's institutions.
He quickly founded the center-right Tisza party — named for Hungary's second-largest river — which, only four months after Magyar's break into electoral politics, won 30% of the vote in European Parliament elections.
As Tisza's popularity grew, a chant heard at its rallies became a motto for its rise: “The Tisza is flooding.”
While Magyar has cast his task in the election as dismantling Orbán's autocratic system, he has promised to keep some of the prime minister's policies he views as positive, such as a fence along the southern border to keep out migrants, and a popular utility reduction program.
Still, his party — a member of the European Parliament's largest, center-right group — diverges from the constellation of far-right political movements in Europe and beyond that view Orbán as a shining example of nationalist populism in action.
In a sign of U.S. President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement's admiration for Orbán, Vice President JD Vance is set to visit Budapest on Tuesday in support of his reelection.
Many EU leaders are watching Hungary's election in the hopes that Orbán will be defeated.
His frequent vetoes — which most recently included blocking a major, 90-bill euro ($104-billion) EU loan for Ukraine — have often been to please his euroskeptic base, Magyar said, “vetoing just to veto so he can say at home that he is vetoing.”
The prime minister's conduct has led to renewed calls within the EU to reform the bloc’s foundational treaties by reducing the number of decisions that require unanimity — a way to buttress against the paralysis that can be caused by intransigent member states.
Magyar said that under a Tisza government, European leaders can expect a “constructive position,” but one that is “critical and willing to debate. We want to be there at the table.”
Despite Orbán's exploitation of the EU's unanimity rules, the ability to veto important decisions is a “valid option,” he continued, adding: “I think the European leaders have no problem with this, they have a problem with the unnecessary troublemaker role.”
“The task of a Hungarian prime minister at any given time is to represent Hungarian interests, and if necessary, to represent them forcefully,” he said. “Whatever it costs.”
Orbán has confounded, and even angered, nearly every other EU leader with his conciliatory approach to Russia and closeness to President Vladimir Putin. Some EU officials, and many of his opponents at home, have accused him of forsaking his commitments to the bloc on Moscow’s behalf.
As nearly every EU country cut off supplies of Russian fossil fuels following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Hungary, along with Slovakia, maintained and even increased supplies — drawing ire from many countries who accused them of helping finance the war.
While Magyar has condemned Hungary's drift toward Moscow, as well as reports that Russian secret services are meddling in the election to tip it in Orbán's favor, he said his future government will pursue a “pragmatic” approach toward Russia.
“Pragmatism means that we have no say in Russia’s internal affairs, and they don’t have any say in our affairs,” he said. “We are both sovereign countries, and we respect each other, but we don’t have to like each other.”
Magyar has criticized Orbán's government for failing to diversify its energy mix, and advocated for reaching new agreements and constructing new infrastructure to bring oil and gas from other sources into landlocked Hungary.
Still, he said, “this does not mean that we must stop using Russian oil tomorrow. It means that the European Union’s resources must be used well.”
Hungarian opposition leader Peter Magyar addresses people during an election rally in Kiskunhalas, Hungary, Thursday, April 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)
Hungarian opposition leader Peter Magyar addresses people during an election rally in Kiskunhalas, Hungary, Thursday, April 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)
Hungarian opposition leader Peter Magyar speaks during an interview with the Associated Press, Thursday, April 2, 2026, in Kiskunhalas, Hungary. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)
Hungarian opposition leader Peter Magyar speaks during an interview with the Associated Press, Thursday, April 2, 2026, in Kiskunhalas, Hungary. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)
