After winning the House of Representatives Prime Minister election for the second time in just over a month, Shigeru Ishiba, who has taken office again, proposed that the Japanese government will provide at least 10 trillion yen (about 468.8 billion yuan) in support before the 2030 fiscal year to promote the semiconductor and artificial intelligence industries.
At a press conference on Monday evening, Shigeru Ishiba said, "We will develop a new aid framework to attract over 50 trillion yen in public and private investment over the next 10 years
This plan will be included in the comprehensive economic plan determined in November, providing subsidies, investments from government affiliated institutions, and loan debt guarantees for private sector financial groups. Shigeru Ishiba emphasized that the government will not issue "deficit making bonds" to fund the initiative.
By the way, in response to the short video of "Shi Pomao closes his eyes and lowers his head during the election on Monday" that was wildly circulated on the Internet, Chief Cabinet Secretary Lin Fangzheng also responded on Monday night that Shi Pomao is busy late at night every day. I heard that he has a cold and is taking cold medicine.
(Source: Social Media)
Positive news points directly to Rapidus
Compared to AI, which has a wider scope of involvement, the Japanese government's semiconductor policy is also unanimously seen as a positive for the "Japanese semiconductor national team" Rapidus.
Rapidus was originally a semiconductor manufacturing company planned by eight major Japanese companies, including SoftBank, Sony, and Toyota, in 2022. Previously, the Japanese government was also considering transferring government funded factories and equipment to the company in exchange for Rapidus equity.
Currently, Rapidus' Hokkaido factory plans to start producing 2-nanometer chips in 2027 and is expected to receive extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment starting from December of this year. The company expects to invest 5 trillion yen to achieve its goals, after deducting 920 billion yen in government subsidies, the remaining money will have to be raised through the market. Existing shareholders such as SoftBank and Sony have indicated that they will increase their investments, and Fujitsu may also invest.
According to the latest report, Japan will launch a framework to strengthen the foundation of artificial intelligence and semiconductor industries, which will extend until the fiscal year 2030. The Japanese government also believes that the predictability of providing subsidies year by year is low, so it has turned to locking in subsidies for many years at once. The relevant departments will prepare legislation so that government agencies can provide debt guarantees and investments to Rapidus. The current goal is to submit a proposal to Congress by 2025.
The Japanese government expects that this framework will have an overall economic impact of 160 trillion yen.
It is worth mentioning that due to the fact that the current Shigeru Ishiba government is a minority in parliament, all legislation, including the economic budget, needs to seek support from opposition centrist parties.
