Japan doubles down on chips
Japan announced a roughly US$4 billion injection into Rapidus to help the country compete in AI chip manufacturing, signalling intensified national competition for semiconductor capacity. The move highlights how governments are treating chip capacity as strategic infrastructure in the AI race. (x.com)
Japan just approved another 631.5 billion yen, about $4 billion, for Rapidus, the state-backed chipmaker trying to put advanced semiconductor production back on Japanese soil. The money was announced on April 11 and pushes Japan’s research support for Rapidus to 2.354 trillion yen. (reuters.com) Rapidus is not a giant old manufacturer getting a bailout. It was created in August 2022 with backing from eight Japanese companies, including Toyota, Sony, SoftBank, NTT, NEC, Denso, Kioxia, and MUFG Bank. (rapidus.inc) The bet is on “2 nanometer” chips, which is industry shorthand for a very advanced generation of logic chips. These are the kinds of chips used to run artificial intelligence systems, cloud servers, and the fast data centers that train large models. (rapidus.inc) Making those chips is closer to building a particle-physics lab than opening a normal factory. Rapidus says its plant in Chitose, on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido, needs extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment from ASML, the Dutch company that makes the world’s most advanced chip-printing machines. (rapidus.inc) Rapidus is trying to move fast by borrowing a playbook instead of inventing one alone. It has been working with IBM on 2 nanometer process technology and, since June 2024, on chiplet packaging, which means linking smaller chip blocks together like Lego pieces inside one package. (ibm.com) Japan’s timetable is aggressive. Rapidus says its pilot line in Hokkaido was scheduled to start operating in April 2025, with mass production targeted for 2027. (rapidus.inc) That schedule explains why Tokyo keeps writing bigger checks. Reuters reported on April 11 that the new subsidy is meant to accelerate research and development, and the ministry said the support is part of a wider push to strengthen domestic production of advanced semiconductors and protect supply chains. (reuters.com) This is also bigger than one company. Japan’s industry ministry said the same day that the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, a government agency known as NEDO, will also support design work by Fujitsu and IBM Japan on advanced chips for artificial intelligence. (reuters.com) The background here is that Japan used to dominate semiconductors. In the late 1980s, Japanese companies held about half of the global chip market, and then lost ground for decades as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Samsung, and later Intel pulled ahead in advanced logic manufacturing. (wikipedia.org) Now governments are treating chip plants the way they treat ports, power grids, and oil reserves. Bloomberg reported on April 11 that Japan’s latest approval lifts total public backing for Rapidus to roughly $16 billion, which shows how far states are willing to go to secure computing capacity before the next artificial intelligence bottleneck hits. (bloomberg.com)
