By FinancialTimes
Publication Date: 2026-02-12 07:29:00
Greetings from Katey here in Tokyo, where a snowy Sunday election has come and gone, leaving Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi with a resounding victory and a long to-do list.
Somewhere on that list, which includes tackling a cost-of-living crisis and managing an unusually challenging relationship with the US, are Japan’s high-tech ambitions. Successive governments have made a renaissance of Japanese chipmaking a key priority, most notably by pouring billions of dollars into start-up Rapidus.
So it must have been extremely welcome news for Takaichi when CC Wei, chief executive of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, arrived in Tokyo last week to discuss plans for upgrading his company’s second chip plant in Kumamoto, Japan.
TSMC already has one plant up and running in the southwestern prefecture. The second facility, still under construction, was originally meant to produce 6- and 7-nanometer chips. Advanced, for sure, but still a few generations away from cutting-edge. Such is the demand for AI chips, however, that TSMC has decided to make 3-nm chips instead and potentially serve not only local demand but even global customers. (Rapidus, by the way, is supposed to start making even more advanced 2-nm chips in 2027 — the smaller the number, the more powerful the chip, generally speaking.) TSMC announced the strategic upgrade for the Kumamoto plant this week, after taking the rare step of holding its annual board meeting there rather than at home in Taiwan.
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