Cognition AI, maker of Devin (an AI software engineering tool), is opening its first international office in Tokyo and expanding across Asia, targeting Japan first because of its combination of legacy code, aging infrastructure, and workforce shortage.
The move follows strong user engagement and follows a $1 billion（約1600億円） funding round that valued the company at $26 billion（約4.2兆円）; Sapporo's city government has already used Devin to modernize over one million lines of legacy code in a fraction of the usual time.
What happened
Cognition AI, the San Francisco startup behind Devin (an AI coding tool), opened a Tokyo office in April and is making Singapore its Asia-Pacific headquarters later this year. The move follows strong user engagement in Japan, where Devin was already spreading before the official launch—the community even debated the correct honorific suffix, settling on 'Devin-kun.' In late May, Cognition raised more than $1 billion（約1600億円） at a $26 billion（約4.2兆円） valuation, with annualized run rate reaching $492 million（約790億円）.
Why it matters
Japan faces a shrinking workforce and aging digital infrastructure, with the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry estimating a shortage of 789,000 software engineers by 2030. Devin addresses this directly: Sapporo's city government used it to modernize over one million lines of legacy code in roughly a quarter of the time it would normally take. For businesses in Japan, AI agents like Devin could allow engineers to manage teams of AI tools rather than work in isolation, while multilingual AI may help reduce isolation created by low English proficiency.
What to watch
Cognition is also expanding to Malaysia, South Korea, and Australia. The company notes that demand at Cognition is doubling roughly every seven weeks, and geographically diverse teams allow compute to be used during off-peak hours across time zones—when people work in Japan, people in New York are asleep.
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