Physical AI, Moving with Our Lives: Inside Kawasaki’s New Center in Silicon Valley
Generative AI is now part of everyday life, enabling anyone to create and work more efficiently. Physical AI extends these capabilities beyond screens and into the real world. Unlike generative AI, physical AI has a “body” that allows it to interact with the real world. Because it operates in the physical world, physical AI must do more than generate useful outputs—it must perform safely and reliably amid real-world variability. That requires not only advances in AI, but also trusted hardware, precise sensing and control, and the kind of field-proven know-how that comes from years of experience in real operations. Physical AI is expected to enable machines to work more closely with people and become trusted partners in everyday life and work. To help realize this future, Kawasaki has established a new hub in San Jose, positioning itself at the forefront of physical AI development.
A Place Where the Next Decade Will Be Decided: A New Hub Opens in San Jose
On May 21, 2026, the Kawasaki Physical AI Center San Jose was established in the heart of Silicon Valley, where the trends shaping the world’s next decade begin to take form. The new hub was established alongside Kawasaki Robotics' long-standing Silicon Valley operations, leveraging over 25 years of industry experience and engagement within the semiconductor robotics sector. Kawasaki Robotics (USA), Inc. has primarily focused on wafer-handling robots used in semiconductor manufacturing systems. The Kawasaki Physical AI Center aims not only to make robots more advanced and multifunctional, but also to bring physical AI into real-world operations in ways that continuously improve customer workflows. Starting with robotics, Kawasaki intends to build practical know-how that can be extended to other assets, including mobility, to deliver more integrated solutions to societal and industrial challenges.
By establishing the Physical AI Center, Kawasaki has set the starting point for co-creation, collaboration, and partnership with many organizations that share a commitment to shaping the future of physical AI. Within just a few kilometers of the center are major innovators in the field, including Stanford University, NVIDIA, Analog Devices, and Microsoft.
During the opening ceremony, Analog Devices' Katsu Nakamura and Microsoft's Dayan Rodriguez emphasized the importance of collaboration in advancing physical AI, highlighting Kawasaki's role in the emerging ecosystem. The center reflects Kawasaki's vision of bringing physical AI into both everyday life and industrial automation through practical, real-world applications.
The San Jose center forms part of Kawasaki's three-location global strategy to advance physical AI. Within this framework, Japan serves as the primary hub for real-world implementation across a broad range of industries, while the San Jose center focuses on co-creation, experimentation, and rapid prototyping. Complementing these efforts, Kawasaki's European operations concentrate on implementing physical AI technologies within the healthcare sector. Together, these three locations can build a network that supports the development, testing, and deployment of physical AI on a global scale.
58 Years of Real-World Expertise: The Training Material for AI
The foundation of Kawasaki's approach to physical AI lies in the extensive expertise accumulated through 58 years of robotics development since 1968.
Kawasaki sees access to real machines operating in real-world environments as essential to the practical realization of physical AI.
Kawasaki has a long history of analyzing tasks such as welding and painting, using knowledge from real worksites to determine how they can be automated through robotics. As one of the few companies that develop both industrial robots and social robots, Kawasaki has accumulated a vast amount of real-world motion and operational data. These datasets are exactly the kind of training data needed for physical AI.
This foundation provides a unique advantage in the development and deployment of physical AI. In recent years, this work has expanded to analyzing the movements of highly skilled professionals, such as doctors, and designing ways for robots to support portions of those tasks.
One-Stop Solution in Healthcare
Kawasaki aims to provide more than individual technologies, focusing on creating a fully integrated hospital ecosystem rather than a collection of separate robots. Within this system, technologies such as hinotori™ (*) for robotic-assisted surgery, Nyokkey for supporting nurses and other healthcare workers, and FORRO for logistics and delivery operate as interconnected components of a larger healthcare network.
The humanoid robot Kaleido is also envisioned as part of this ecosystem, combining conventional motion-control software for reliable, precise movements with AI-driven adaptation and decision-making. By linking these technologies with healthcare professionals, patients, and existing hospital information systems, Kawasaki aims to create a seamless flow of information and services throughout the hospital.
This vision points toward a society in which the elderly can maintain safety, independence, and peace of mind while healthcare institutions reduce operational burdens. It represents Kawasaki's response to the challenges associated with population aging and declining birth rates.
Towards New Paths With AI: Where Safety Meets Discovery
Looking ahead to the future of physical AI, one project in Kawasaki's sights is CORLEO, the world's first RMV (Robotic Multi-legged Vehicle). With a planned commercial launch in 2035, the company aims to create a new market centered on tourism and leisure, while also targeting adoption as a mobility solution for the 2030 World Expo in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Within this vision, physical AI is positioned as the key technology enabling both safety and enjoyment. By using virtual off-road environments, Kawasaki can run tens of thousands of simulations to refine handling and control while also helping to close the Sim2Real gap between simulation and real-world operation. This allows capabilities developed in virtual environments to be efficiently transferred to physical machines, enabling an entirely new category of mobility. Yet CORLEO represents more than a new mobility platform. It reflects Kawasaki's broader vision of integrating physical AI into entertainment and new forms of shared experience.
Where to look for what comes next: The Physical AI Center
Across healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, and mobility, physical AI serves as the foundation for technologies that work alongside people, adapt to complex environments, and address real societal needs. At the heart of this vision is a future where robots are no longer confined to factories but become trusted partners in everyday life. Kawasaki’s San Jose-based Physical AI Center aims to serve as a focal point for the next wave of innovation, bringing together organizations and individuals committed to shaping the future.
