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July 05, 2026
 

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TECH

SoftBank Group aims to capitalize on soaring demand for the computing capacity that underpins artificial intelligence applications.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 30, 2025
SoftBank buys data center investment firm DigitalBridge
SoftBank’s billionaire founder Masayoshi Son is aiming to capitalize on soaring demand for digital infrastructure, driven by the artificial intelligence boom.
U.S. President Donald Trump with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea, on Oct. 30. Beneath a series of diplomatic victories this year, Xi still has plenty of worries at home — from structural economic vulnerabilities to a personnel purge that’s reached deep into the military and party elite.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
Dec 29, 2025
Xi’s triumphant year staring down Trump belies troubles in China
China was peerless in confronting Donald Trump’s renewed trade war, but beneath such victories, he has plenty of worries at home, such as structural economic vulnerabilities.
Intercontinental missiles of a new type are paraded through Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Sept. 3.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 28, 2025
China and America must get serious about AI risk
As AI capabilities advance, they could be used for cyberattacks on infrastructure, creating bioweapons, shaping disinformation campaigns, targeting lethal drones and more.
Christmas has been corrupted by nonhuman entities: Algorithms that we flatteringly call artificial intelligence have desecrated the season’s music and holiday ritual. 
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2025
The AI war on Christmas
My guess is that someone prompted an AI model to generate winter and Christmas songs that avoided “controversial” subjects such as divine and human love, resulting in mush.
A prototype of a Rapidus 300mm wafer displayed at the Semicon Japan exhibition. The industry ministry has earmarked ¥150 billion for state-backed chip venture Rapidus, bringing the cumulative government investment in the venture to ¥250 billion.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 26, 2025
Japan to quadruple spending support for chips and AI in budget
The jump in chips and AI spending comes at as Japan is trying to strengthen its capacities in frontier technology, and the U.S. and China race ahead.
Japan’s efforts to halt rural depopulation and revive its countryside require a broader focus on quality of life, productivity and realistic population goals.
EDITORIALS
Dec 26, 2025
Facts, not fantasy, must guide regional revitalization policy
By 2022, more than half of all municipalities in Japan were designated as “depopulated areas.”
U.S. approval of Nvidia’s advanced AI chip exports to China risks accelerating the PLA’s military AI capabilities and eroding America’s technological edge at a critical moment in the U.S.-China strategic rivalry.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2025
Will Nvidia turbocharge China’s AI military?
The deal could give China access to Nvidia’s second-most powerful AI processor, which is roughly six times more capable than the H20 chips previously available to it.
An employee inspects integrated circuit boards at a factory in Suzhou, China. The U.S. has declined to impose additional tariffs on chip imports despite accusing China of engaging in unfair trade practices in the semiconductor sector.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 24, 2025
U.S. holds off on new Chinese chip tariffs amid Trump-Xi truce
The U.S. government has floated the possibility of future ones.
An official from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology explains the agency's plan to conduct a test to excavate the deep seabed off Minamitorishima and collect deep-sea mud, in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN
Dec 24, 2025
Japan to test deep-sea extraction of rare-earth mud
The test is set to be the first of its kind in the world, reaching depths of about 6,000 meters, according to JAMSTEC.
As AI gains autonomy, its potential for unpredictable actions and the pursuit of self-preservation poses serious risks to human life, democracy and global security.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 24, 2025
AI agents threaten free societies
That is precisely why AI agents pose risks to democracy. Systems that are trained to reason and act without human interference cannot always be trusted to adhere to human commands.
Electrical infrastructure for servers at Meta’s data center in Eagle Mountain, Utah. Data centers can use as much electricity as a small city, straining local power grids.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 24, 2025
The Pentagon and AI giants have a weakness. Both need China’s batteries, badly.
Long a problem for industries such as auto manufacturing, Chinese battery dominance is now being seen as a national security threat.
A research group led by Kyoto University has developed a Christian bot to help broaden access to Christianity in Japan.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Dec 24, 2025
After developing a Buddhist bot, Kyoto University develops Christian bot
Initially, its use will be limited to “believers under clergy guidance or by the general public within church settings.”
Japan hopes the upcoming visit of United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan will "deepen friendly and cooperative relations in a broad range of areas," Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 23, 2025
UAE president to visit Japan for the first time in 36 years
The United Arab Emirates leader will meet with Emperor Naruhito and attend a state banquet at the Imperial Palace, and he is to hold talks with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
While China has made rapid advances in artificial intelligence, its structural constraints remain significant.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 23, 2025
Why China can’t win the AI-led industrial revolution
No industrial revolution has ever emerged outside advanced democratic capitalism, and that is no accident.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi (center) attending a Cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's Office on Tuesday.
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2025
Japanese government adopts first basic plan on AI
The plan stipulates that Japan will “create reliable AI” while balancing technological innovation and risk management, with an aim to offer the best environment for AI development.
Ting Cai, head of Rakuten Group’s artificial intelligence team, has the task of creating AI systems that would augment the company’s many businesses at a minimal cost.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 23, 2025
Rakuten AI boss diverges from Big Tech in prioritizing low cost
The Tokyo-based company is expanding its AI team under the stewardship of a Google veteran and building models with a focus on cost efficiency.
A worker installs battery packs into an electric vehicle chassis at the vehicle assembly lines of Geely Automobile's Zeekr Factory in Ningbo, China, in March. Chinese firms are on track for a 75% jump this year in global shipments of lithium-ion battery cells for energy storage, according to one estimate.
BUSINESS / Tech / ANALYSIS
Dec 22, 2025
China’s power reforms and global data center buildout usher in battery boom
Chinese firms have exported more than $65 billion worth of storage and electric-vehicle batteries this year, cementing their dominance in the sector.
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son attends an event to pitch AI for businesses in Tokyo in February.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 20, 2025
SoftBank races to fulfill $22.5 billion funding pledge to OpenAI by year-end
The “all-in” bet on OpenAI is among the biggest yet by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, as he seeks to improve his firm’s position in the race for artificial intelligence.
Documented evidence shows schools that implement smartphone-free policies see measurable improvements in academic performance and student well-being, even within a single semester.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 19, 2025
It’s time for Japan to ban smartphones in schools
Excessive screen time creates addiction comparable to substance abuse, but it is more nefarious in that it impacts people in unseen ways, unlike tobacco or alcohol.
TikTok said it signed binding agreements to create a U.S. joint venture majority-owned by American investors.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 19, 2025
TikTok says it signed agreements for new U.S. joint venture
CEO Shou Chew said deals with Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX have been signed, with a closing date of Jan. 22, 2026.
‘My dream is broken’: Japan visa rules push out foreign residents
A man orders from a kebab shop in the Okubo district in Tokyo.
Japan plans to sharply raise fees for residence permits from October
Foreign tourists walk on the path leading to the Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in May.
Japan’s princesses face life-altering legal revisions
Princess Aiko, the daughter of Emperor Naruhito, said in a 2022 news conference upon coming of age that she hopes to “spend a long time together” with her parents.
Japanese police arrest nine over Sierra Leone-based special fraud
Japanese police have arrested nine individuals for their alleged involvement in a special fraud case using Sierra Leone as a base.
Japanese-language education is at a turning point
The country is gradually transforming Japanese-language education from a volunteer-driven system into a professional, government-supported network to better serve its growing foreign population. 
X Games returns to Chiba with new team format
Skateboarder Sora Shirai practices at Makuhari Messe in Chiba on Friday afternoon. X Games Chiba begins on Saturday.
NU Festival tests Takanawa Gateway City complex’s culture cred
Veteran improvisers Kazuo Imai and Atsuhiro Ito brought some unruly energy to NU Festival, a three-day multimedia event held at the Takanawa Gateway City complex.  
Japan’s princesses face life-altering legal revisions
Princess Aiko, the daughter of Emperor Naruhito, said in a 2022 news conference upon coming of age that she hopes to “spend a long time together” with her parents.
Six of the best: rikishi of note in each sumo division
Kazuma (right) faces off against future <i>yokozuna</i> Onosato during the All Japan Amateur Sumo Championships at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo in December 2020.
Iran war exposed, but hasn’t changed, Japan’s reliance on imported oil
Wind turbines generate energy from strong easterly winds on the Shonai Plain in Yamagata Prefecture. Despite the oil crisis caused by conflict near the Strait of Hormuz, and concerns instability in the region could continue to impact supply and the price of imports, the administration of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi does not seem to be drawing on the war as a pretext to hasten progress toward Japan&#039;s renewable goals.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival
By Alex K.T. Martin

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