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July 05, 2026
 

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AI

Japanese memory chipmaker Kioxia Holdings counts Apple and Microsoft among its clients and is now worth about $36 billion.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 30, 2025
AI memory demand propels Kioxia to world’s best-performing stock
Kioxia’s shares have risen around 540% year-to-date, outperforming all other members of the MSCI World Index and making it the top stock in Japan’s Topix benchmark for 2025.
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.
The Indonesia Stock Exchange building in Sudirman Central Business District in Jakarta. Markets in Indonesia and Thailand have led the way in luring investors back after they sold regional equities in 10 of the previous 11 months.
BUSINESS
Dec 29, 2025
Return of global funds puts Southeast Asia in spotlight for 2026
Drawn by cheap valuations and the need to diversify portfolios, foreign funds have poured $337 million into Southeast Asia’s emerging markets in December.
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.
A Paraguayan woman whose relative was detained by federal agents scuffles with officers in the halls of immigration court in New York in July.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2025
Trump and the end of American hegemony
His unlawful policies following his return to the White House have already upended the postwar era of globalization.
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.
Hisashi Matsumoto, minister in charge of cybersecurity, holds a news conference in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 23, 2025
Japanese government adopts new cybersecurity strategy
The new system will enable the police, the Defense Ministry and the Self-Defense Forces to work together in neutralizing critical attacks.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell looks on as U.S. President Donald Trump holds a document during a tour of the Federal Reserve Board building in Washington in July.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 23, 2025
Will the U.S. Fed be allowed to do its job?
Will the central bank maintain enough autonomy and credibility to promote financial stability and employment if politics, debt and market exuberance head the other way?
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.
Two blockbuster trading debuts in Shanghai have signaled insatiable demand for future national champions in China's chip sector.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 22, 2025
Chinese chipmakers race to IPO market after back-to-back listings surge
The surge in listings is coming on the back of two blockbuster trading debuts in Shanghai.
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.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at a data center in Abilene, Texas, in September. During a recent lunch with media editors in New York, Altman said developing AI systems for companies could be a $100 billion market.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 19, 2025
Business leaders agree AI is the future. They just wish it worked right now.
So far, the vast majority of businesses are struggling to realize a meaningful return on their artificial intelligence investments.
‘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.
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's renewable goals.
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.
Some startups see opportunity in an aging Japan
Yasmin Baba, CTO of Amilis, wins the Grand Prize at the Pitch2Tokyo Grand Final on Feb. 19.
Japan’s fertility system offers few safe paths for same-sex couples
A Tokyo Pride parade participant holds a sign that says "we want to be a married couple, not a couple."
Life inside Japan’s largest prison for women
Western-style rooms spanning the size of four tatami mats with hardwood floors, a toilet and soft mattresses on bed frames are designated for foreign nationals and those with health conditions at Tochigi Prison.

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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