Given these geopolitical risks, TSMC’s establishment of a factory in Kumamoto Prefecture is an important step toward stabilizing supply. Because semiconductors are small, it’s efficient to manufacture them in one location and ship them by air, which makes them less suited to distributed production like automobiles. However, if various factors make it impossible to procure them from overseas in this way, it becomes essential to have a stable manufacturing base within Japan. National policy companies like Lapidus are also extremely important from the perspective of economic security.
IBM’s involvement as a technology partner with Rapidus is a strategic decision by IBM, which does not have its own manufacturing capabilities, to choose Japan as a base for technology implementation. Micron Technology’s acquisition of Elpida Memory can also be understood in a similar context. Furthermore, the case of Japanese automakers being forced to suspend production due to a semiconductor shortage shows how important semiconductor supplies are to the stable operation of the entire manufacturing industry.
It seems that international collaboration will be the key going forward, rather than Japan doing things alone.
That’s right. Japan needs to build strategic and flexible cooperative relationships with major countries such as Taiwan, South Korea, and the United States. We should build a deeper cooperative relationship with Taiwan, including in the geopolitical context of vis-à-vis China. For example, in August 2024, Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan’s state-run telecommunications company, and NTT successfully conducted a connection experiment using APN, a high-speed network technology for the next-generation optical communications infrastructure IOWN. This connected Taipei and Tokyo, 3,000 km apart, without delay, and was an important stepping stone to accelerating future industrial cooperation.
While South Korea has competitiveness surpassing Japan in the fields of home appliances and semiconductors, it still relies on Japan for the procurement of parts and manufacturing equipment. It is desirable to build a healthy cooperative relationship between the two countries as rivals who mutually improve their technological capabilities, rather than as enemies. However, since South Korea has a strong desire to be number one, ingenuity is required to build a cooperative relationship.
Japan and the United States have a close and inseparable relationship in both economic and security terms. IBM’s technical support was a major boost to the establishment of Lapidus. Compared to the US-China relationship, Japan-US relations are extremely friendly, and going forward, we must maintain and strengthen this win-win relationship. Movements for Japan-US collaboration have already begun, such as the collaboration between TSMC and Sony, and the collaboration between Lapidus and IBM. It is not realistic for Japan to revive its industry alone, and a sense of balance is essential, leveraging overseas technology, capital, and human resources while strategically protecting areas that need to be protected.
