Japan’s technology news headlines
reported in March 2025
Also available:
‣ Asia’s Tech News, Weekly Newsletters
&
‣ Indo-Pacific 5×5: Daily geopolitics updates
KPMG Venture Pulse Q1 2025
• AUKUS security grouping looks to Japan for possible joint research on artificial intelligence-backed drones for use in surveillance, information collection and more / full item
• Japan: KDDI successfully tested drone delivery to remote village, Urayama, covering 7km and delivering a 3kg package autonomously, and using Starlink services for no-coverage areas / full item
• Japan: ispace preps for its Resilience moon lander to attempt touchdown on June 6th, which may make ispace the first Japanese private company to accomplish the feat / full item
• ‘How Japan is championing a regional startup economy’ from the World Economic Forum / full item
• Japan: Research team has developed world’s largest ‘biohybrid’ robot hand, combining cultivated human muscle tissue and traditional robotics / full item
• Japan: Dymon Co ultra-compact Moon rover launched via SpaceX rocket from NASA Kennedy Space Center, set to be world’s first private firm to explore and photograph lunar surface / full item
• Japan: An intro to Kyoto Fusioneering, a Kyoto University startup working on maximising fuel use in the relatively inefficient fusion energy space / full item
• Japan: Rapidus semiconductor firm is reportedly struggling to secure orders, with questions raised around capacity beyond core semicon production / full item
• Japan: Marubeni conglomerate and Singapore’s Hexa Renewables ink strategic partnership to co-develop up to 100 MW of solar energy projects for deployment across Japan / full item
• Japan: SoftBank preps to remodel Osaka facility into a data centre for running artificial intelligence agents developed in collaboration with OpenAI, ChatGPT parent / full item
Blue Security: Subsea cables and Maritime Security in Southeast Asia
• Rocket Lab launched a Japanese firm’s synthetic aperture radar imaging satellite from its New Zealand facility, the first of 8 planned missions for iQPS / full item
• Japan: Tenstorrent, US semiconductor firm backed by Amazon’s Bezos, is to launch an AI chip service in Japan charging users based on amount of data processed, reducing costs for developers / full item
• Japan: NTT telecom giant confirmed that hackers accessed data of near 18,000 corporate customers in February cyberattack / full item
• Japan’s NASDAQ-listed Coincheck crypto exchange has launched a cryptocurrency custody service, to cater to high-value ‘corporate and institutional’ investors / full item
• In January, the Bank of Papua New Guinea, Japan’s METI, and Soramitsu developer completed a Proof of Concept for a PNG CBDC, the Digital Kina / full item
• Taiwan: South Korea’s Hyundai Card and Japan’s Line Pay partner for QR code payment capabilities for Taiwan users / full item
• Taiwan: South Korea’s Hyundai Card and Japan’s Line Pay partner for QR code payment capabilities for Taiwan users / full item
Indo-Pacific Insight weekly newsletter on Substack
Asia Tech Newsletters, Weekly: March 2025
- To March 29th on LinkedIn and via Substack
- To March 22nd on LinkedIn and via Substack
- To March 15th on LinkedIn and via Substack
- To March 8th on LinkedIn and via Substack
- To March 1st on LinkedIn and via Substack
Critical technologies in the news, globally, in March 2025
