CEATEC 2026 Opens With Autonomous Physical AI Robots in the Spotlight
CEATEC 2026, Japan’s largest showcase for digital and electronics technology, opened on October 13 at Makuhari Messe in Chiba near Tokyo, and robots and machines that use AI to act on their own are drawing the most attention, NHK and Kyodo News reported. The organiser, the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association, has 821 companies and organisations on the floor and expects more than 110,000 visitors before the show closes on Friday.
Mitsubishi Electric is demonstrating robots that restock store shelves. Its AI recognises a mix of products stored in baskets, and the robots pick them up and place them in their designated spots. The company says the system should help relieve labour shortages, and Keisuke Nakajima of Mitsubishi Electric told NHK it was developed for retail but could be extended to factory automation. Hitachi is also showing AI that runs robots and machinery more efficiently on production lines.
Amazon Web Services used the show to display a prototype research platform in which AI agents build virtual workspaces and repeatedly test and refine robot behaviour, Nikkei reported. By the estimate of AWS, work that took seven specialists a month can be done by the agents in 13 days, cutting human effort by 96%. With Yaskawa Electric, AWS also staged a “greengrocer of the future”, where a visitor asks for curry ingredients and a robot arm picks the suggested vegetables and puts them in a basket.
What it means in practice
Not everything on display is about motion. NEC is showing a system that simulates ransomware attacks so companies can rehearse their first response, along with AI that watches for signs of an imminent cyberattack. Disaster prevention is another theme. Kyodo noted that startups and university labs now number a record 246, up from 232 last year, and that first-time exhibitors account for 41% of participants, a sign that newer players see the show as a route to corporate customers.
The focus fits a broader push. Ahead of the opening, a surgical AI model won an innovation prize at CEATEC Award 2026, manufacturers have been rolling out AI robots to ease the labour shortage, and the government has assigned factory machine IDs to feed physical AI training.
What to watch: which demonstrations turn into orders from retailers and factories, how exhibitors handle safety when robots work near people, and whether security tools like those from NEC become standard as more machines connect to AI.