Japan’s technology news in Q1 of 2025
March 2025 ● February 2025 ● January 2025
- Japan’s population (2023): 123.3 million
- Japan’s online population: 117.4M / 94.2%
- Japan’s median age: 49.9 years
MIT Quantum Index Report 2025
Japan’s Technology news: March 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
- 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
Secure World Foundation: Global Counterspace Capabilities
tech news, Japan: February 2025
- Japan: Kinish secures $800K with molecular farming tech, developing a proprietary rice plant that produces casein, one of the main proteins found in milk / full item
- Japan: Tenchijin unveils ‘Thermo Earth of Love Project’, a proprietary satellite program to boost surface temperature monitoring capabilities, featuring development of its own satellite / full item
- Japan’s SKY Perfect JSAT Asia-wide satellite TV major and US firm, Planet Labs, partner for Earth observation satellite constellation / full item
- Japan is to invest $1.5BN in next-gen ultra-thin, flexible solar panels, subsidising commercialisation to secure first-mover advantages / full item
- Japan takes hybrid quantum computing pole position with integration of Reimei quantum computer with Fugaku ‘traditional’ supercomputer / full item
- Japan partners The Philippines for work on Open Radio Access Network System, delivering JPY 444 million grant in support / full item
- Japan: Toyota Financial Services is to partner Daiwa Securities and Mitsubishi UFJ Bank for issuance of blockchain-driven security token bonds in March / full item
- Japan: ArkEdge Space observation satellite produced for Taiwan’s space agency has captured high-quality Earth imagery from a spacecraft smaller than a suitcase / full item
- Japan’s Nat’l Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Tech and Intel partner to develop a quantum computer, with Intel providing its most advanced chips for the project / full item
- Japan’s SoftBank invests in Cipher Mining crypto and data center firm, gaining option to acquire undeveloped 300MW data center site in Texas / full item
- Japan: SKY Perfect JSAT to launch low Earth orbit imagery constellation, committing $230M to growing beyond geostationary business / full item
- Japan: Hitachi increases startup investment funding to $1BN with addition of $400M fund, setting sights on AI and ‘frontier tech’, and looking to deepen its India presence / full item
- Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency successfully launches 5th satellite to further develop domestically-managed QZSS sat-nav positioning system / full item
- Asia Pacific: Proofpoint cybersecurity report finds 88% of Forbes Global 2000 firms have not implemented highest level of email authentication, leaving stakeholders at risk of fraud / full item
- Vietnam: Japan’s Kyushu semiconductor industry bodies explored Japan-Vietnam partnership opportunities in recent meetings / full item
- Cambodia: A brief overview of Japan’s participation in the Kingdom’s moves towards digitalization, touching on development of Bakong payments and more / full item
Indo-Pacific 5×5: Daily newsletters, daily downloads
Japanese Technologies: January 2025
- Taiwan’s Turing Drive autonomous driving firm partners Japan’s Xtran transportation company to deploy driverless vehicles in Okinawa, with particular relevance to the elderly / full item
- Japan: NTT Digital launches NFT-based ‘Happy & Wellness Cheering Team’ mental health campaign in partnership with 22 major firms / full item
- Japan: Nine major companies and institutions, including Fujitsu and Institute of Science Tokyo, partner for world-first integrated system to combat deepfakes and false information / full item
- Japan: LINE NEXT, Web3 venture under LINE messaging app, launched first batch of DApps – decentralized apps – via LINE messenger, looking to push large-scale Web3 adoption / full item
- Japan: Ubitone, app and gloves that facilitate wireless communication for deafblind people, translating voice or text into ‘finger braille’ sent via Bluetooth / full item
- Japan: New strategy of ‘active cyber defence’ to allow hackers working for police or Self-Defence Forces to infiltrate servers to neutralise the source of cyber attacks / full item
- Japan’s Kisui Tech unveils Adam, a harvesting robot combining lunar rover tech and AI to support elderly farmers, 80% of whom are over 60 in Japan / full item
- Japan: ispace Resilience lunar lander launched with SpaceX from Kennedy Space Center, expected to reach the moon and attempt landing towards the end of May / full item
- Yamaha Motor and BMW have backed Phoenix Tailings, a US-based rare earths processing firm boasting minimal emissions, adding to diversification of supply chains / full item
- Japan: Toyota’s ‘living laboratory’, Woven City, is now open for business, with formal launch coming later in 2025 / full item
- Japan: Former crypto exchange operator, Remixpoint, completes $3.2M purchase of Bitcoin, with plans for a further $16M spend, adding to holdings in Ethereum, Solana and others / full item
- Japan’s Rapidus preps to provide 2nm chip samples to US semicon giant, Broadcom, with trial production set for April 2025, and mass production scheduled for 2027 / full item
- Australia: Japan’s Idemitsu Kosan to trial an Australia plantation of non-edible oilseed to assess potential as feedstock for sustainable aviation fuel / full item
- Japan: Toyota moves into space technology with $44M investment in Interstellar Technologies as it pursues mass production of launch rockets / full item
- “Japan’s communications ministry plans to position Japanese network equipment… as a viable alternative to Huawei Technologies’ products for data centres developed by American tech companies in Asia.” / full item
- Japan: Google Waymo to roll out self-driving taxis in Tokyo early 2025, beating Japanese automakers and Tesla robotaxi to the largest non-China urban market for autonomous driving / full item
- Download: ‘Digital Japan 2025 – Five Trends To Look Out For’ from Yuri Group / “Under the startup development plan, Tokyo wants to more than double foreign direct investment…” / full item
- Japan: TSMC commences production at Kumamoto Prefecture plant, manufacturing 12-28nm chips for cars and image sensors, with Governor proposing a third TSMC plant / full item
- A brief overview of how the recent Honda-Nissan deal may be a key move in responding to the explosive growth of China’s BYD / full item
- Japan: Financial Services Agency proposes redefining crypto-assets as financial assets that the general public can invest in, a change from current ‘payment instrument’ designation / full item
- Japan: An intro to ArkEdge Space, a low-cost micro and nano-satellite firm working on issues including disaster recovery and relief, sustainable development and more / full item
- Techstars Tokyo opens applications for 2nd cohort of its 3-month accelerator, looking for 12 seed-stage startups from Japan and around the world / full item
- Japan’s Seven Bank, the banking arm of 7-Eleven Group, is to install its first 100 ATMs in 4 Malaysian states / full item
- Indonesia Battery Corp looks to Japanese and South Korean partnerships, alongside raw material suppliers in Australia and South America, in response to US China-related tariff concerns / full item
