Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met with the heads of the world’s largest chipmakers Thursday, as the country shores up support for semiconductor manufacturing capacity at home.
Intel Corp. chief Patrick Gelsinger and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Chairman Mark Liu joined the meeting along with executives from Samsung Electronics Co., Micron Technology Inc. and IBM. Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura and Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara were among government officials present.
Japan is bolstering advanced chipmaking at home for cutting-edge chips amid growing US-China tensions and as concern grows about over-reliance on Taiwan, which China claims as its own.
The government is expected to support Micron’s next-generation memory chip plant in Hiroshima with financial incentives of about ¥200 billion ($1.5 billion), according to people familiar with the matter.
Micron Is Said to Get $1.5 Billion From Japan for Next-Gen Chips
TSMC has teamed up with Sony Group Corp. to build a new plant in Kumamoto prefecture which is expected to cost about $8 billion. The Taiwanese contract chipmaker has also said it is considering a second plant.
The government is also supporting a new chip venture, Rapidus Corp. to help reboot the country’s semiconductor industry. Backed by Toyota Motor Corp., Sony Group Corp. and six other Japanese companies, Rapidus signed a partnership with IBM to develop the US firm’s leading-edge 2-nanometer technologies.
