Global chipmakers to expand in Japan as tech decoupling accelerates

Seven of the world’s largest semiconductor makers have set out plans to increase manufacturing and deepen tech partnerships in Japan as western allies step up efforts to reshape the global chip supply chain amid rising tensions with China.

At an unprecedented meeting in Tokyo with Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida, the heads of chipmakers including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and Intel and Micron of the US described plans that could transform Japan’s prospects of re-emerging as a semiconductor powerhouse.

Micron said it expected to invest up to ¥500bn ($3.7bn), including Japanese state subsidies, to build a plant to produce cutting-edge extreme ultraviolet lithography technology in Hiroshima.

Samsung is also discussing setting up a ¥30bn research and development centre in Yokohama with pilot lines for semiconductor devices. Japanese government officials said the move followed a thaw in relations between Tokyo and Seoul. Samsung was not available for comment.

“Japan’s role has risen as like-minded nations work to strengthen their supply chains,” said Yasutoshi Nishimura, Japan’s minister of economy, trade and industry, following the meeting with chip chief executives. “We reconfirmed the strong potential for Japan’s semiconductor industry.”

The announcement comes as Japan prepares to host a G7 summit where economic security will be a focus of talks. Semiconductors in particular have emerged as an area of intense focus for the US and allies.

The easing of longstanding tensions between South Korea and Japan comes as the US has deployed significant diplomatic capital to urge closer alignment among its allies in the region against the perceived threat of China’s expanding technological and military powers, and to reduce dependency on chips produced by TSMC and others in Taiwan.

TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, also expressed the possibility of more investment in Japan after it agreed to build a new plant in the south-western prefecture of Kumamoto.

Nishimura also referred to conversations with Intel on greater co-operation with Japanese chipmakers and said he had discussed co-operation among Applied Materials, IBM and Japan’s Rapidus.

The gathering of the chipmakers in Tokyo adds further definition to the industrial blocs that are emerging as soured US-China relations continue to produce signs of decoupling in global supply chains.

“Investing in secure supply chains and a strategic partnership for your economic and national security is the key cornerstone of confronting economic coercion,” Rahm Emanuel, the US ambassador to Japan, told the Financial Times.

Under an economic security law that Japan enacted last year, the government declared semiconductors a product essential to daily lives and economic activity.

Nishimura said the government would use ¥1.3tn earmarked in Japan’s supplementary budget last year to support the pledges made by foreign chipmakers.

Ahead of the G7 summit, Kishida is due to meet US president Joe Biden on Thursday. The two countries’ leaders are expected to announce a $70mn deal to educate and train 20,000 semiconductor engineers at 11 universities in the US and Japan, including Purdue University, Hiroshima University and Tohoku University, according to a person involved in the discussions.

Japan’s use of generous subsidies to attract chipmakers is tempered by concerns that efforts to expand the semiconductor industry will be undercut by the country’s shrinking workforce, including a chronic shortage of engineers.