ai&, a Tokyo-based AI technology company, has launched with $50 million in seed funding alongside more than $2 billion in committed data center capital, positioning itself to build a vertically integrated AI infrastructure and services platform for the global market.
Founded by David Bennett, former CCO of Tenstorrent and former CEO and President of NEC Personal Computers and Lenovo Japan, and Shimpei Hara, former technology executive at Tenstorrent, the company is focused on integrating data centers, heterogeneous compute, and advanced model services into a unified stack.
The seed funding will be used to accelerate development across infrastructure, compute, and model services. In parallel, the company has secured $2 billion in capital to support long term expansion of its data center footprint across Japan, the United States, and broader Asia. ai& is currently developing ten data center sites, including plans for a 100MW+ campus over the next three years, with two facilities already operational.
The company is building modular data center architecture paired with a heterogeneous cloud infrastructure designed to run AI models across disaggregated systems using hardware from multiple vendors. This approach is intended to improve performance and reduce costs compared to providers that rely on a single vendor stack.
ai& also plans to establish an AI lab in Japan to support the development of localized, production grade AI models and services, while fostering domestic AI talent. The platform will offer an OpenAI compatible API, enabling enterprises and developers to integrate advanced AI capabilities more easily.
The launch reflects growing enterprise demand for sovereign and secure AI infrastructure, particularly in Japan, which the company views as an underleveraged market for AI deployment.
Additionally, Unsung Fields, Inc., a Japan based data center cloud company, has transitioned its infrastructure and operations into the ai& platform and will no longer operate independently.
KEY QUOTES
“By owning and optimizing the stack end to end — from data centers and heterogeneous compute to models and services — our customers get better performance, better economics, and less friction. We intend to prove the model first in Japan and expand across APAC, Europe, and the Middle East, with our first US data center coming online within the next two years.”
“We’re building the data center that actually owns the full stack. There is a clear need among enterprises and developers for sovereign and secure AI. We believe Japan is uniquely positioned to build and serve these needs.”
David Bennett, CEO of ai&
“Japan has world-class engineering talent and a deep enterprise ecosystem that has been waiting for an AI infrastructure platform built specifically for its needs. We are building that platform here, and we are building it to last.”
Shimpei Hara, Co-Founder of ai&
