On Saturday, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced approval of an extra 631.5 billion yen, equivalent to $3.96 billion, to speed up research and development at semiconductor company Rapidus. This funding supports the government’s push to enhance local manufacturing of cutting-edge chips and improve supply chain resilience. With this addition, the total aid for Rapidus’s R&D reaches 2.354 trillion yen. The ministry also revealed that the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, known as NEDO, will back projects related to chip design from Fujitsu and IBM Japan. Rapidus is focusing on creating advanced logic chips at the 2-nanometer level, aiming to begin large-scale production in fiscal year 2027. Earlier in February, the firm obtained around 160 billion yen in investments from private entities, alongside an anticipated 250 billion yen from public sources.
