By Jason Douglas
TOKYO -- Atsuyoshi Koike dreams of making computer chips on the moon. First, though, he has to prove he can do it on earth.
Koike is the public face of Japan's multibillion-dollar effort to muscle back into an industry it used to dominate. He leads Rapidus, a Japanese government-backed company that is aiming to vault into the top rank of global chip makers when, if all goes to plan, it starts mass production next year.
The company, founded in 2022, hit a milestone in July when it produced its first 2-nanometer prototype chip using technology co-developed with IBM. It is close to completing its first production facility on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.
It plans this year to give more potential customers the information and tools they need to start designing the chips they want Rapidus to make one day.
Coming up with a 2-nanometer prototype is complicated enough. Manufacturing such complex and sensitive products in large enough quantities to make economic sense is harder still.
Such chips are the current gold standard for processors used in artificial-intelligence data centers, smartphones and self-driving cars. They are produced at scale only by industry leaders such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, known as TSMC, and South Korea's Samsung Electronics. Industry experts say Rapidus has a way to go to prove to potential customers it can compete with giants such as TSMC.
As if that wasn't moonshot enough, Koike's longer-term ambition is to build a semiconductor factory, known as a fab, on the moon, where he believes low gravity and the vacuum of space would make chip manufacturing easier and more productive.
"I'm thinking about it very seriously," he said. "Of course I like to show the great future, the big dream. But we have to show the actual data, the actual result. That is the key for my company."
Japan isn't the only country trying to reshore production of this strategic technology in the dawning age of AI. President Trump has been pushing global chip makers such as TSMC to manufacture semiconductors in the U.S. China is pouring investment into domestic producers.
Under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Tokyo has doubled down on government support for semiconductor technology, an industry Japan used to lead before being superseded by rivals such as Taiwan and South Korea.
Japanese chip makers became too insular, said Koike, and should have teamed up with U.S. firms to stay competitive.
"That was a big mistake," he said. Rapidus turned to IBM, which provided key technology and know-how to the company in its pursuit of 2-nanometer chips. Rapidus engineers train with IBM colleagues in upstate New York.
Rapidus' as-yet-unproven advantage over other chip makers, according to Koike, will be speed. A typical fab processes silicon wafers in batches, moving them together through different stages of printing and etching to build chips layer by layer. Rapidus will make one wafer at a time and process it right away, he said.
Koike hopes to do in 15 days what takes other manufacturers 50, charging extra for an express service like Japan's Shinkansen bullet train.
"I get a Shinkansen fee," he said.
For now, though, it is early days. The company raised around $1.7 billion in additional funding, including an investment of more than $600 million from the Japanese government, in February after an initial, smaller fundraising at its founding in 2022. Private-sector backers include Sony, Toyota and telecommunications firm NTT.
Koike acknowledges Rapidus will need tens of billions of dollars more to manufacture chips at the scale it is aiming for. TSMC said it would invest up to $56 billion this year alone to feed the world's insatiable appetite for chips.
Beyond the first factory in Hokkaido, Koike plans more fabs once the orders start flowing. He imagines robots and humans working together in the coming decade to make the next generation of semiconductors.
As for the moonshot, Koike said he thinks it could happen some time in the 2040s. NASA's Artemis II mission sped off to the moon Wednesday, and the space agency hopes eventually to build a permanent moon base.
Write to Jason Douglas at jason.douglas@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 04, 2026 11:50 ET (15:50 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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