Indo-Pacific Insight: Tech, trade, supply, space, geopolitics…
- 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
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- 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
Critical technologies, globally, in January 2025
- 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
Fostering Order in the Indo-Pacific: What the European can learn
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