02 April 2024 – The economics ministry said on Tuesday that Japan would give the semiconductor joint venture Rapidus additional subsidies worth up to 590 billion yen ($3.9 billion). The announcement coincides with Japan’s public support of tens of billions of dollars in a chipmaker competition with the United States and Europe. Later this decade, Hokkaido, in northern Japan, will be the site of Rapidus’s manufacturing facility for state-of-the-art two-nanometer logic chips. Rapidus is a consortium that includes several Japanese technological businesses and the US giant IBM.
Economy Ministry official Hidemichi Shimizu told reporters, “The Rapidus project is extremely important (as it concerns) state-of-the-art semiconductors that can influence the competitiveness of Japan’s industry as a whole.”
The government has already announced plans to make up to four trillion yen worth of state sweeteners available in an effort to triple Japanese chip sales to over 15 trillion yen by 2030.
Conclusion
Rapidus has already acquired several hundred billion yen in public financing. The government’s goal is to bring the Japanese tech sector back to its peak in the 1980s when NEC and Toshiba dominated the microprocessor market. However, competition from Taiwan and South Korea has decreased Japan’s market share from more than 50% to around 10% worldwide.
