In Taiwan, it was reported that Jensen Huang (Huang Renxun), CEO of US semiconductor giant Nvidia, will visit Japan in mid-July and meet with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and SoftBank Group Chairman Masayoshi Son. This year, CEO Huang successively visited Taiwan, where Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Hon Hai Precision Industry (Foxconn) are responsible for the AI semiconductor manufacturing network, and South Korea, where SK Hynix and Samsung provide memory media and Naver provides information infrastructure, but Japan was initially excluded from his itinerary.

Japan has excellent companies in digital-related manufacturing, such as Tokyo Electron and Shin-Etsu Chemical, but these companies have been content with being behind-the-scenes suppliers of components located upstream in the supply chain and have not become leading players in AI that create global standards.

One of the major reasons Japan lost its leadership in the digital field is its "approach to investment." TSMC, Samsung, and SK Hynix have recently invested trillions of yen in advanced processes and new factories. However, Japanese companies' investments are clearly conservative. Akio Yaita, executive director of the Indo-Pacific Strategy Think Tank, once pointed out that Japanese companies' time deposits increased by about 25 trillion yen over the past two years. In other words, Japanese companies do not lack funds; they are simply unwilling to invest by taking risks.

There is a widespread sense of crisis in Japan's business community that, if things continue as they are, Japan will be left behind as merely an "indispensable subcontractor" in the new AI order. In this context, CEO Huang's visit to Japan will be an extremely important opportunity for Japan to return to being a major battleground in the AI field. What CEO Huang is looking for is not just a component supplier, but a national-scale partner capable of building the entire AI social infrastructure on a large scale at once. In such circumstances, Masayoshi Son, who has repeatedly made bold investments, can be said to be the only entrepreneur in Japan who can articulate "a holistic vision for system construction."

Nvidia and SoftBank once announced that they would jointly build Japan's strongest AI supercomputer and develop a system combining AI computing and 5G communication. Son's goal is to integrate Japan's communication networks, data centers, corporate customers, and AI computing capabilities to build a massive "AI Grid (AI network)." If this is realized, SoftBank will become the gateway for distributing AI computing capabilities to businesses, medical institutions, and manufacturing industries across Japan.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi meeting with CEO Huang, meaning the Prime Minister's direct involvement, signifies elevating the cooperation with Nvidia to the dimension of national competitiveness and energy policy. Japan is facing severe aging and a shortage of a working population, and it needs AI and robots the most in the world to improve productivity. However, operating AI data centers requires enormous electricity and land. Cooling functions and power grid stability are the biggest obstacles to promoting AI adoption worldwide. Prime Minister Takaichi must prove to CEO Huang that the Japanese government can build a market worth Nvidia's long-term investment through policies and infrastructure development.

Just because CEO Huang put Japan later on his schedule doesn't mean he doesn't recognize Japan's value. Japan is actually extremely important for the global AI supply chain. Although Japan lagged in the foundational competition for the internet, it still maintains strong advantages in fields linked to the real physical world, such as robots, automobiles, precision control, and sensors. If Nvidia's overwhelming computing power can be combined with Japan's unique precision manufacturing and communication networks by companies like Toyota Motor, FANUC, and Sony, Japan can once again stand at the forefront of the world.

In the AI industrial map of Asia drawn by CEO Huang, Taiwan is responsible for manufacturing, South Korea for memory media and information infrastructure, and Japan for applied environments such as materials, equipment, robots, and communication. The roles of Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan are clearly distinct. Japan has finally brought CEO Huang back to the negotiating table. However, the real battle is yet to come. Whether Japan can return to the core of AI depends not on the top-level meetings themselves, but on the actions taken afterward.

The biggest key for Japan to regain its position as a major battleground will be whether Japanese companies are prepared to invest huge sums of money, the government quickly resolves issues of electricity and land, and the industry can break away from being merely excellent component suppliers and instead define markets themselves. (Translation and Editing/Kisaragi Hayato)