Japan’s tech news in April of 2023 covered items, subjects, concerns and developments across a wide range of industries and applications. Japan’s semiconductor industry moves were in the spotlight in April, as were the country’s Web3 and cryptocurrency industry regulations. Alongside these, Japan and other Quad members discussed cyber-focused information sharing, with Japan’s space technology ambitions also covered.
Hit the tech news headlines below for these and other articles.
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- Japan: Alibaba Cloud to open blockchain ‘laboratory’ in Shibuya to focus on Japanese game developers working in Web3
- Japan to restrict exports of 23 types of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, aligning with US advanced chip controls
- Japan sets goal of trebling semiconductor sales to $112BN by 2030, alongside subsidies to semicon firms to build plants or expand existing facilities in Japan
- Japan: An intro to Farmship, agri-tech startup using AI to assess growth and potential of – for now – spinach seedlings, aiming to boost yields and efficiency by weeding out poor growers
- Japan: Mizuho Financial Group and Line message app abandon digibank plans for smartphone-based Line Bank, beaten to market by competitors
World Economic Forum: Global Risks Report 2023
- Japan: OpenAI considering Japan office following talks, with gov’t evaluating possibilities of AI use in reducing government worker workloads
- Japan: Gov’t Web3 project team publishes white paper laying out recommendations to boost the country’s crypto industry, proposing tax reforms, clearer accounting standards and a DAO law
- Japan: ispace market debut on the Tokyo Stock Exchange a stress test, with shares slow to sell whilst world’s first commercial lander orbits the moon for April 26th moon landing
The Escalating Global Risk Environment for Submarine Cables
- SoftBank Group, owned by Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, to sell SoftBank Ventures Asia VC arm to The Edgeof, investment firm owned by his youngest brother, Taizo
- Japan: Government to provide $31.4M to fund access to cloud-based quantum computing services to local companies
- Japan’s 3 largest financial groups jump on generative AI bandwagon, aiming to adopt AI-powered chatbots to boost efficiency on internal tasks before developing task-specific implementations
- Japan: An overview of the country’s growing cybercrime challenges
- Japan: Luup e-scooter and e-bike firm raises $30M with city ‘ports’ focus, seeing opportunities later in infrastructure, providing a hub network for drone and delivery robots
- ICYMI: Quad countries – US, Australia, India and Japan – to build system enabling each government’s cyber body to share information on cyber-attacks targeting critical infrastructure
ASPI: Critical Technology Tracker
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