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September 17, 2024
 

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STARTUPS

A factory operated by metal processing company Iwanuma Seiko, which has been entrusted with work involving the space industry for the first time
BUSINESS / Companies / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Sep 17, 2024
Small firms in Tohoku showcase technologies in growing space sector
The government plans to boost the space technology market, leading to hopes of a space industry ecosystem in the region.
An Nvidia Quantum-X800 InfiniBand Platform designed for artificial intelligence on display in Taipei in June
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 9, 2024
Nvidia-backed Sakana AI eyes strategic partnerships in Japan
Growing geopolitical risks are heightening interest in the Tokyo-based startup.
U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (center) and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, disembark from their campaign bus in Savannah, Georgia, on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 29, 2024
VCs want Harris to prioritize abortion rights and pro-tech policies
Of about 800 venture capitalists who signed an open letter of support, 225 detailed their reasons for endorsing Harris and the policies they favor in a survey.
An artificial intelligence process sign in the Samsung Electronics hall at the IFA Consumer Electronics and Home Appliances trade fair in Berlin in 2022
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 27, 2024
Is that voice real or AI? One startup says it can tell the difference
The latest wave of artificial intelligence technology can mimic the voice of almost anyone.
Sarvam AI, often described as India’s OpenAI, introduced software for businesses that can interact with customers using spoken voice rather than just text.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 26, 2024
Cheap AI voice bots are suddenly everywhere in India
Startups may turn India into a proving ground for what could be the next frontier of generative artificial intelligence products.
An AI-driven smartphone application, jointly developed by a tech startup and researchers at Nihon University, purports to tell when cats feel pain. It was being demonstrated during a vet examination in Fujisawa on June 11.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 23, 2024
Japan should go big or go home on startups
As of last month, Japan had just 10 unicorns, according to Pitchbook data, compared to 714 in the U.S., 316 in China and 62 in India.
The listing ceremony of Ola Electric Mobility at the National Stock Exchange in Mumbai, India, on Aug. 9
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 19, 2024
Mumbai debuts deliver for SoftBank after market retreat from AI trims gains
Three firms backed by SoftBank have made solid debuts in the past week, in a positive sign after the Vision Fund fell to a loss of ¥204.3 billion in the June quarter.
Polina Oba enjoys the food in Fukuoka, but still finds herself traveling to Tokyo often as that’s where most of the decision-makers are based. 
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Aug 12, 2024
Polina Oba: ‘Try quick, fail quick, learn quick and you need to always pivot’
Networking is at the core of Polina Oba's GourmetPro startup. Not only is it great meeting new people but you'll never know where those connections may lead.
Joining the revolution brought by the era-defining release of ChatGPT requires a supply of cash that only tech behemoths like Microsoft can provide.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 29, 2024
AI startups swap independence for Big Tech's deep pockets
In the past few months promising companies have seen founders and key executives quietly exit the stage to join the world's dominant tech companies.
Even small and indirect sums from the Government Pension Investment Fund would help startups to get their businesses going.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 29, 2024
Japanese pension funds tiptoe into moonshot tech investments
More sources of funding would help the country’s on-again-off-again quest to monetize pioneering research.
Ryo Ogawa (right), chief executive officer of Timee, and Tomoaki Yagi, chief financial officer, strike the trading bell during the company's listing ceremony at the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Tokyo on Friday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 26, 2024
Shares of job app firm Timee jump in Japan stock trading debut
The stock surged to as high as ¥1,855 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Growth market.
Entrepreneurs who participated in the Beyond Japan Zero to X program last year share their experiences in the United States during a meeting in May in Tokyo.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 23, 2024
Japanese startups advised to internationalize to get some global mojo
Occupying the No. 1 spot in the Japanese market affords many comforts, but global dominance is unlikely to be one of them.
Goki Kusunoki, CEO and co-founder of Samansa, with the company's Loverse app in Tokyo on May 10. The app allows interaction only with generative artificial intelligence.
BUSINESS
Jul 21, 2024
Tiny Japanese startup is bringing AI dating to the masses
Loverse is the latest in a long line of digital solutions to Japan’s loneliness crisis.
An Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. facility in Fujairah, which uses technology developed by 44.01, a startup backed by Sam Altman
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 16, 2024
Sam Altman-backed startup scaling technology to store CO2 in rocks
A type of rock found under every continent holds the potential key to permanently trapping planet-warming carbon dioxide under the Earth’s surface.
Several support networks have launched to help startup founders in Japan whose native language isn't Japanese.
BUSINESS / Companies / Longform
Jul 8, 2024
As Japan's startup ecosystem grows, so does a supportive community of entrepreneurs
Interest in startups is outpacing ecosystem capabilities, which has led more founders to turn to each other for guidance and support.
A Maruti Suzuki India showroom in Chennai, India
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 5, 2024
Suzuki starts $40 million India fund to help rural startups
Suzuki is at risk of losing customers in India due to its paltry lineup of hybrid cars and lack of any electrified options.
Inside the TikTok office in Singapore in 2023
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 1, 2024
China’s AI startups head to Singapore in a bid for global growth
Singapore offers many Chinese artificial intelligence startup companies better access to global investors and customers than China does.
Health minister Keizo Takemi speaks to reporters in Tokyo in March.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jun 27, 2024
Panel sets out investment vision for Japan's health care startups
Since 2019, the number of health care startups established each year in Japan has declined to around 50.
Sakana AI, prospected to become the fastest-ever Japanese company to achieve unicorn status, aims to create energy-efficient AI models that tackle long-term national-level issues.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 24, 2024
What a Japanese AI unicorn can teach Silicon Valley
Sakana AI, prospected to become the fastest-ever Japanese company to achieve unicorn status, is taking a long-term approach to the development of AI for good.
Amid AI chip juggernaut Nvidia's staggering successes, startups seeking the attention of Silicon Valley venture capitalists are being asked to innovate — but without a clear indication of where the next chapter of AI will be written.
BUSINESS / Tech / FOCUS
Jun 23, 2024
Beyond Nvidia: the search for AI's next breakthrough
Startups are being asked to innovate — but without a clear indication of where the next chapter of AI will be written.
Japan's elderly population grows to record 36.25 million
The proportion of people aged 65 and over has risen since the 1950s and is expected to hit 34.8% by 2040, when the second baby boomers (born 1971-1974) will join that group.
'Shogun' becomes first non-English-language winner of best drama Emmy
Japanese actress Anna Sawai, winner of the outstanding lead actress in a drama series award for "Shogun," and Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada, winner of the outstanding lead actor in a drama series award for the show, pose in the press room during the 76th Emmy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday.
Japan jumps to No. 2, from sixth place, in Best Countries index
Pedestrians cross an intersection in the Shibuya district of Tokyo. Japan has experienced a postpandemic travel boom, with tourists pouring back in after restrictions closed the country’s borders to travelers.
South Korea is facing deepfake porn crisis
Activists hold up symbolic eye masks during a protest against deepfake porn in Seoul on Aug. 30.
Second assassination attempt on Trump is latest jolt in chaotic campaign
U.S. Secret Service and Homeland Security agents check a former home of a Ryan Routh, a suspect in an alleged assassination attempt on former U.S. President Donald Trump, in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Sunday.
‘Shogun’ and the painstaking art of ‘getting it right’
Hiroyuki Sanada and the cast and crew of "Shogun" accept the award for best drama series at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, California.
Japan’s schools battle to keep kids cool, with or without AC
Students sit under a misting system during recess at Hikarigaoka Haru no Kaze Elementary School in Nerima Ward, Tokyo, on Sept. 6.
Chris Broad's new bar puts cocktails first, YouTube second
A self-proclaimed lover of great cocktails, YouTuber Chris Broad says his new Shibuya watering hole is more a place to get yourself a solid drink than it is anything related to his social media career.
In LDP presidential poll, three kingmakers hold all the cards
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks at the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters in Tokyo in January as former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga (left) looks on.
How China’s dominance of solar and batteries is impacting Japan’s energy transition
Solar panels and wind turbines at a power plant in Hami in China's Xinjiang region. The U.S. and other countries have described China’s actions against Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region, a key cog in the cleantech supply chain, as a genocidal campaign aimed at erasing an entire culture.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

A store clerk tries to cool things down in front of their shop by spraying a hose.
Is extreme weather changing the way Japan shops?
By Alex K.T. Martin

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