Japan Tech - Thematic Research

Japan Tech - Thematic Research

Summary

As Japan weighs the overall cost of hosting the Olympic Games, this report looks at the future of the Japanese technology industry in the context of Japan Inc’s drive over the next decade to create a supersmart society for a shrinking and aging population and growing economically in the process.

Key Highlights

• We see little sign that Japan Inc - based on the collaborative keiretsu culture among the big conglomerates - will break out into a growth economy following the relative failure of reformist Abenomics. It remains a rigidly conservative, risk-averse, hierarchical society, albeit armed with considerable technological prowess.
• However, given this technological prowess, by 2030 Japan will have developed and deployed the technology stack needed to enable a supersmart society, or what it calls Society 5.0. This stack will comprise 5G connectivity, sensors, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing, and extended reality (XR) co-evolving to yield cyber-physical integration in a pervasive, interactive spatial web.
• The onus for delivering Society 5.0 will lie with Japan’s leading research institutes, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and Riken, working closely with its leading technology platform companies, including Toyota, Honda, Fujitsu, NEC, Sony, Rakuten, Panasonic, and FANUC. Support will come from scores of specialist, world-beating upstream hardware and software component suppliers such as Tokyo Electron, Nabtesco, and Keyence.

• This report looks at the state of Japan's technology sector as well as its tech-driven automobile sector.
• It contains analysis of Japan's industries of the future, including industrial robots, medical robots, consumer robots, precision parts, electric and autonomous vehicles, high-performance computing, semiconductors, video games, extended reality, artificial intelligence, Society 5.0, smart cities, and 5G.
• It also looks at the technology, macroeconomic, and regulatory trends currently impacting Japan's tech sector, and analyzes merger and acquisition (M&A) activity.

• Japan is in the top three globally in 5G deployment and is the clear global leader in robotics.
• It has developed the world’s fastest supercomputers on which to develop and deploy downstream AI applications in robotics, automation, healthcare, and extended reality.
• This report offers invaluable insight into this fascinating and potentially lucrative market, including details of the leading companies across Japan's hardware, software, and services segments.