The Japanese government has revamped its chip strategy with a goal of tripling sales of domestically produced semiconductors to more than ￥15 trillion (US$107.7 billion) by 2030, as the nation centers chips at the heart of its economic security policy.
The revised strategy, released yesterday, aims to bolster efforts to develop and produce cutting-edge semiconductors that are critical for economic security measures and advanced technology such as generative AI, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said.
The sales target for firms that make chips in Japan would help secure a stable supply of semiconductors for the nation, the strategy says.
The target, which appeared in earlier drafts of the revised strategy, compares with sales of about ￥5 trillion in 2020.
“Various investments are being made by Japanese chip-related companies, including smaller ones, and we’d like to back up these investments,” Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura told reporters prior to the release of the strategy. “We want to secure the necessary budget to support these efforts.”
The 274-page strategy did not say how much the government plans to dole out over the coming years in addition to the billions of dollars already in place to encourage Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to add production capacity and to fund Japan’s own chip venture, Rapidus Corp.
Last month, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met with the heads of the world’s largest chipmakers as part of efforts to bring semiconductor production and investment to Japan.
The chipmakers said they would consider more investment in Japan depending on financial incentives and demand.
The government has pledged financial support worth ￥330 billion for Rapidus and up to ￥476 billion for TSMC’s new factory in Kumamoto in southern Japan. The government is also providing up to ￥92.9 billion in subsidies to Kioxia Holdings Corp’s plant in Mie in central Japan.
The government expects the TSMC and Kioxia projects alone to boost Japan’s GDP by ￥4.2 trillion, create about 463,000 jobs and generate about ￥760 billion in tax revenue, the revised strategy shows.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
RSS