TOKYO — Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, known as NEDO, has selected MW Corp. to develop a robot foundation model for household work, placing the startup in a government-supported research program that combines a purpose-built home with a rail-mounted robot.

NEDO said Sept. 9 (Japanese-language source) that MW was among 13 organizations chosen from 29 applicants for the robotics portion of the Generative AI Accelerator Challenge, or GENIAC. The government record confirms MW’s selection but does not disclose the amount of support allocated to the company.

MW presented its broader Living Home concept at a media event in Tokyo on Sept. 10, and conducted a live demonstration of an MW bot prototype inside a trailer-home test environment, according to a company announcement (Japanese-language source). The presentation was a controlled demonstration, not a residential deployment.

The startup is pursuing a different design from free-moving humanoids intended to work in buildings designed for people. MW bot is a dual-arm, semihumanoid machine that travels along ceiling or wall rails, keeping it separate from residents’ floor-level walking paths. The company’s technology description (Japanese-language source) says the robot would normally remain stored in a designated “nest” and emerge when needed.

A companion system called MW Cargo is intended to carry shopping bags, clothes and garbage. The company envisions sensors in the home detecting people and environmental conditions, with its MW Intelligence software coordinating the residence and robot.

Under the GENIAC project, MW plans to develop a vision-language-action model tailored to Japanese homes. Such models translate visual information and language instructions into physical actions by a robot.

NEDO’s project outline says MW plans to establish a 50-station data facility that would collect 50,000 hours of household-task data annually and 150,000 hours over three years. The stated target is autonomous performance of five household tasks with a 90% success rate. Those are development goals, not independently established results.

MW says it demonstrated a prototype handling shopping bags and laundry. It plans a show an autonomously controlled robot in a wood-frame house in 2027 and aims to complete and sell its first robot-equipped home in 2028.

The company has not disclosed the expected price of the home or robot, the value of its government support or the five tasks covered by its performance target. It also has not explained how the rail system could be installed in existing homes or what safety certification and maintenance arrangements commercial installations would require.