Japan backs Rapidus with $4B

Japan has approved another 631.5 billion yen, about $4 billion, for Rapidus as it races to build advanced chip production at home. (reuters.com) Japan’s industry ministry said on April 11 that the new support will speed research and development at Rapidus. Reuters reported the latest package lifts the company’s total research and development aid to 2.354 trillion yen. (reuters.com) Rapidus said on February 27 that it had completed a 267.6 billion yen funding round from the Japanese government and private-sector companies. The company said the money is meant to carry it from research into mass production of 2-nanometer logic chips in 2027. (rapidus.inc) A foundry is a chip factory that manufactures processors designed by other companies. Rapidus says its IIM-1 plant in Chitose, Hokkaido, started a pilot line in April 2025, with sample production later that year and mass production targeted for 2027. (rapidus.inc) Rapidus is trying to enter the part of the chip business dominated by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung Electronics: the smallest, most advanced logic chips used in artificial intelligence servers and other high-performance computing gear. IBM said in 2024 that it was expanding its work with Rapidus on 2-nanometer chiplet packaging, building on an earlier 2-nanometer technology partnership. (ibm.com) Tokyo has been widening that push beyond one company. In November 2024, Reuters reported that Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s government planned support worth 10 trillion yen or more by fiscal 2030 for semiconductors and artificial intelligence. (reuters.com) Japan has also spent heavily to bring in overseas manufacturers. Reuters reported in 2024 that the government had approved up to 732 billion yen in subsidies for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s second Kumamoto fab, on top of earlier support for its first plant. (reuters.com) Rapidus was founded in 2022 by eight Japanese companies, and Bloomberg reported in February that the latest round included names such as Toyota Motor, Sony Group, and SoftBank. Bloomberg also reported that the government initially held about 10% of Rapidus’s voting shares after a 100 billion yen investment through the Information-technology Promotion Agency. (bloomberg.com) The next test is whether Rapidus can turn a state-backed pilot line in Hokkaido into a reliable 2-nanometer factory by 2027. Japan is now paying enough that missing that deadline would be hard to treat as a routine industrial setback. (rapidus.inc)