EdgeCortix Awarded New 3 Billion Yen NEDO Project to Develop Advanced Energy-Efficient AI Chiplet for Edge Inference and Learning

Backed by Japan’s premier R&D agency, the project accelerates EdgeCortix’s energy-efficient, edge AI chiplet development—advancing real-time learning and scalability to drive innovation across robotics, autonomy, and smart manufacturing.

Tokyo, Japan -- May 28, 2025 – EdgeCortix® Inc., a pioneering fabless semiconductor company specializing in energy-efficient edge artificial Intelligence (AI), today announced it has been awarded an additional 3 billion Yen ($21 Million USD) project from Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), a national research and development agency under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). This funding will drive the development of ‘NovaEdge’—a next-generation, energy-efficient edge AI chiplet designed for high-performance generative AI inference and on-device learning. This breakthrough solution aims to significantly enhance computational and power-efficiency in edge computing environments, while also ensuring adaptability to the rapidly evolving AI model landscape.

The NovaEdge AI chiplet platform builds upon EdgeCortix’s innovative Dynamic Neural Accelerator (DNA) architecture, integrating their latest generation of programmable AI processor with RISC-V-based general-purpose processing in a highly energy-efficient, scalable form factor. Paired with an enhanced version of the company’s MERA compiler and software framework, NovaEdge will enable seamless model optimization, rapid deployment, and real-time on-device learning capabilities. The platform will be developed using TSMC’s technology node, targeting mass production at the Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing (JASM) facility in Kumamoto, in the future.

This marks EdgeCortix’s second major project award within six months, an unprecedented milestone. Combined with a previous 4 billion Yen project from NEDO in November 2024 to develop energy-efficient AI chiplets for post-5G communication systems, EdgeCortix has now secured a total of 7 billion Yen (approximately $49 million USD) in Japanese government-backed R&D support.

“We are deeply honored to receive this prestigious new project award from NEDO reinforcing our leadership in pioneering highly efficient edge AI technology,” said Sakyasingha Dasgupta, Founder & CEO of EdgeCortix Inc. “NovaEdge represents a major leap forward, enabling robust, adaptable, and real-time generative AI capabilities directly at the edge. This milestone strengthens our mission to drive domestic fabless semiconductor innovation and deliver real-world impact across critical sectors, including robotics, autonomous systems, healthcare, smart manufacturing, space and security”.

Designed to deliver more than five times greater power efficiency than GPU-based edge AI solutions, NovaEdge targets a broad range of real-world applications where real-time generative AI and continuous learning or model finetuning are essential. Powered by a programmable architecture for both AI and traditional computing, this breakthrough platform is expected to support the acceleration of Japan’s leadership in advanced AI technologies and expand its competitiveness across global markets.

Strategic Market Impact:

Expected in early 2027, NovaEdge addresses the growing demands for higher performance at the edge while enabling low-latency, power-efficient, and personalized AI experiences. The platform will be commercialized strategically targeting the robotics and industrial sectors with impact across broader markets including space and aerospace. The chiplet platform is fully compatible with EdgeCortix’s previously announced SAKURA-X platform, providing customers significant scalability and ensuring future-proof AI performance while adhering to stringent power-efficiency standards.

About EdgeCortix Inc.

Pioneering the future of the connected intelligent edge, EdgeCortix is a fabless semiconductor company focused on energy-efficient AI processing of Generative-AI workloads at the edge. Founded in 2019 with R&D headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, EdgeCortix delivers a software-first approach with its patented “hardware and software co-exploration” system to design an AI specific runtime reconfigurable accelerator from the ground up. EdgeCortix’s products disrupt the rapidly growing edge AI hardware markets including defense, aerospace, smart cities, industry 4.0, autonomous vehicles and robotics.

For more information about EdgeCortix, visit https://www.edgecortix.com/en/