Japan Backs Rapidus Chip Push

Japan just approved another ¥631.5 billion for Rapidus, a chip startup that did not exist before August 2022 and now wants to mass-produce some of the world’s most advanced logic chips by 2027. Japan’s industry ministry said the new money brings Rapidus’s research-and-development support to ¥2.354 trillion. (reuters.com) Rapidus is trying to do for advanced chips what Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company does for companies like Apple and Nvidia: manufacture chips designed by other firms. Its first factory, called Innovative Integration for Manufacturing 1, is being built in Chitose on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido for 2-nanometer logic semiconductors. (rapidus.inc) A nanometer in chip marketing is a generation label, not a ruler reading, but the direction is simple: smaller generations usually pack in more computing power while using less electricity. Rapidus says its target is 2-nanometer chips or smaller, which is the tier used in the race for artificial intelligence data-center hardware. (rapidus.inc) Japan is not starting from zero in chips, but it lost the top end of the industry over decades while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung became the dominant contract manufacturers. Rapidus was created with backing from eight Japanese companies, including Toyota, Sony, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, SoftBank, Denso, NEC, Kioxia, and MUFG Bank. (rapidus.inc) The company’s shortcut is IBM. Rapidus signed a deal in December 2022 to work with IBM on turning IBM’s 2-nanometer technology into something that can be manufactured at scale, and the two companies expanded that partnership in June 2024 to include chiplet packaging for high-performance semiconductors. (ibm.com) A chiplet is a smaller block that can be combined with other blocks inside one package, like snapping together specialized Lego pieces instead of carving one giant piece from scratch. IBM and Rapidus said that matters because artificial intelligence chips increasingly rely on advanced packaging as much as on the transistor technology inside the silicon. (ibm.com) Rapidus has been moving from blueprints to hardware. The company says its pilot line in Chitose is operating, it successfully ran gate-all-around transistors in July 2025, and it opened an adjacent analysis center in April 2026 to test reliability, chemistry, and electrical performance. (rapidus.inc 1) (rapidus.inc 2) Gate-all-around is the transistor design now used at the leading edge because the gate wraps around the channel on multiple sides, like gripping a hose all the way around instead of pinching it from one side. Rapidus says that design is the key technology behind its 2-nanometer process because it improves performance and lowers power use. (rapidus.inc 1) (rapidus.inc 2) Japan is funding more than one chip bet at once. The government has also committed around ¥732 billion for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s second Kumamoto plant, which Reuters reported is expected to launch 3-nanometer production in Japan in 2028. (reuters.com) (trendforce.com) The difference is that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is already the world’s biggest foundry, while Rapidus is trying to become one from scratch in about five years. That is why Bloomberg described the project as a long shot even as Japan’s total support climbed toward roughly $16 billion. (bloomberg.com) (reuters.com) If Rapidus hits its 2027 target, Japan gets a domestic source for leading-edge logic chips at a moment when artificial intelligence demand is pulling more of the world’s supply into a few hands. If it misses, Tokyo will still have spent trillions of yen trying to rebuild an industry it once led and now mostly watches from the sidelines. (rapidus.inc) (reuters.com)