With $15 billion in government funding, Japan's Rapidus is partnering with chip design companies in an attempt to answer a major question about Japan's technological ambitions: can it attract enough customers for its state-of-the-art chip manufacturing facility? Rapidus announced Monday that it will collaborate with 17 companies, including US chip design software company Synopsys and India's Infosys, to help customers design chips. The investment director at White Oak Capital stated that Rapidus's biggest problem remains who will fill the fab, and Monday's announcement "does not yet prove its commercial appeal."
To produce 2-nanometer chips in its own fab, it faces both technological and competitive hurdles. Failure would be a major setback for Japan's industrial strategy and could have repercussions for the entire chip industry.
Rapidus CEO Atsuyoshi Koike stated that he is confident there is sufficient market demand to support another cutting-edge manufacturer. He added that mass production preparations are progressing as planned, and the environment is better than envisioned when Rapidus was founded in 2022. However, significant technological obstacles remain. Rapidus is collaborating with IBM and has begun trial operations, but experts say commercial success is far from guaranteed. Kazuyoshi Saito, an analyst at Cosmo Securities, stated, "Making a chip foundry operate 24/7, maintain consistent yields, and continue production until the business becomes profitable is extremely difficult. Even Samsung has been struggling with this."
