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July 05, 2026
 

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TECH

The Rapidus booth at the Semicon Japan exhibition in Tokyo on Wednesday. The exhibition is scheduled to continue through Friday.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 18, 2025
Rapidus announces new artificial intelligence design tools
The chipmaker, which already uses artificial intelligence in certain aspects of its business, expects its integration to enable it to cut design time and cost.
Honda will suspend output in Japan on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, a spokesperson said Thursday, highlighting the lingering fallout of the global chip shortage.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 18, 2025
Honda to halt production at plants in Japan and China due to chip shortage
The Japanese carmaker has been hit hard after China blocked Nexperia — owned by Chinese company Wingtech Technology — from exporting products made at its local plants.
Generative AI models are trained on publicly accessible creative content yet offer little to the artists, musicians, coders and others who produce it.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 18, 2025
AI thrives on unpaid creative labor
Generative AI models are trained on publicly accessible creative content yet offer little to the artists, musicians, coders and others who produce it.
The National Police Agency plans to warn against the obscene use of AI at delinquency-prevention lectures at schools and other events.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 18, 2025
Over half of deepfakes of underage victims made by schoolmates, Japanese police say
The National Police Agency for the first time has released information on minors who became victims of sexual deepfakes, or obscene fake images created using generative AI.
Resonac Holdings Chief Executive Officer Hidehito Takahashi
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 17, 2025
Chip-sector linchpin Resonac seeks to tap China’s AI ambitions
Tokyo-based Resonac, which supplies crucial chemicals used to make cutting-edge chips, has bolstered production capacity in China.
Recruit Holdings and Indeed.com CEO Hisayuki Idekoba
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 17, 2025
AI-assisted hiring will drive Indeed’s growth, Recruit CEO says
The job-search portal’s head said the business is using AI to help companies optimize their talent-acquisition approach.
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman in San Francisco in June
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 16, 2025
Despite soaring valuation, uncertainty clouds the outlook for OpenAI
“Big Short” investor Michael Burry has likened OpenAI to Netscape, which ruled the browser market in the 1990s only to lose to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.
Under a new law, Google and Apple will have to allow third parties to run independent app stores and offer their own payment options.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 15, 2025
What will change with Japan’s first attempt at regulating Big Tech?
While a previous law urged platforms to improve business practices and regularly report their endeavors, the new bill may alter the rules of the game.
Fujifilm is among the Japanese firms that are considering investing in in Rapidus, which aims to mass-produce next-generation semiconductors.
BUSINESS
Dec 13, 2025
Kyocera and Fujifilm among firms eyeing investments in Rapidus
The new funding is expected to put the chipmaker on track to achieving its goal of securing about ¥130 billion in additional private-sector investments.
Orix is among those in the next round of bidding for Macquarie Capital’s majority stake in a Dutch hyperscale data center.
BUSINESS
Dec 13, 2025
Macquarie’s Dutch data center stake attracts Igneo and Orix
Infrastructure has emerged as a key theme for investors seeking to profit from the AI boom, setting off an arms race among the world’s largest alternative asset managers.
SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son speaks during an event in Tokyo on Dec. 1.
BUSINESS
Dec 13, 2025
SoftBank billionaire Son trims share pledges after AI rally
Son trimmed his committed shares by 19.4 million to around 154.2 million, according to a filing earlier this month.
Bears have killed a record 13 people in Japan this year and injured more than 200 others.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 12, 2025
GPS watch of hiker killed in Hokkaido bear attack shows last movements
Bears have killed a record 13 people in Japan this year and injured more than 200 others.
Cardinal Stephen Chow, the bishop of Hong Kong, speaks during Mass in Hong Kong in November 2023. During the opening Mass a three-day event to draft guidelines for the clergy’s use of artificial intelligence in the region Asia, he described AI as a "gift from God."
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 12, 2025
Calling AI ‘a gift from God,’ Catholic bishops draft usage guidelines for Asia
Catholic bishops and priests from across Asia drafted pastoral guidelines for AI usage among the churches in the region.
MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking and Mizuho Bank plan to provide loans totaling up to around ¥2 trillion to Rapidus, marking the first private-sector loan to the Japanese chipmaker.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 12, 2025
Three megabanks eye loans of up to ¥2 trillion to Rapidus
The injection of such funds is expected to boost the firm’s planned mass production of cutting-edge chips, which requires a large amount of money.
SoftBank Group Chairman Masayoshi Son speaks in Tokyo earlier this month. Sources have said the group is considering acquiring data-center operator Switch. The move would give it outright ownership of a large portfolio of the facilities at a time when demand for their computing power is growing rapidly.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 12, 2025
SoftBank may acquire Switch data-center group deal in AI infrastructure bid
The Japanese company has also been in advanced talks on a potential purchase of one of Switch’s main private equity backers, according to recent reports.
Chicago O'Hare International Airport on Nov. 26. Along with social media handles, the U.S. would require all travelers who must complete an Electronic System for Travel Authorization form to submit email addresses used over the last 10 years and names, birth dates, residences and the birthplaces of parents, siblings, children and spouses.
WORLD
Dec 12, 2025
U.S. travel group and foreign tourists leery of Trump plan to vet social media
The change, expected to take effect on Feb. 8, would require travelers to the U.S. from countries in the visa waiver program to submit social media data.
A child looks at his phone in Melbourne on Nov. 27 ahead of Australia's ban on children under 16 from using social media.
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 11, 2025
Australian content creators feel sting of losing young fans to social media ban
Follower counts primarily on Instagram have dropped, creators said, while engagement patterns — likes, comments and views — have also changed.
Nvidia head Jensen Huang speaks in Washington in October. The CEO said earlier this year that when its Blackwell chip was released, nobody wanted the previous generation anymore.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 11, 2025
AI’s $400 billion problem: Are chips getting old too fast?
With chipmakers releasing new, more powerful processors faster than before, estimates regarding how fast these chips become obsolete may be overly optimistic.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Communications Minister Anika Wells speak to the media during a visit to St. John Paul II College in Canberra, Australia, on Thursday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Dec 11, 2025
Australian leader defends social media ban as teens brag about staying online
The rollout of the ban was always going to be bumpy but would ultimately save lives, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says.
A woman and her relatives look at her home, which was damaged during a night of Russian missile and drone strikes, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Novi Petrivtsi, outside Kyiv, on Saturday.
WORLD
Dec 11, 2025
Intel and AMD accused of allowing chips in Russian missiles
The lawsuits, filed on behalf of dozens of Ukrainian civilians, accuse the companies of “willful ignorance” as third parties resold restricted chips to Russia.
‘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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