Rapidus

Founded in August 2022 with eight Japanese heavyweights as shareholders – among them Toyota, Sony, NTT, NEC, SoftBank and Kioxia – though most of the money in practice comes from the government. The process technology is licensed from IBM, which showed a 2 nm node with gate-all-around transistors in 2021 but has no fab of its own.

The IIM-1 plant in Chitose, Hokkaido, started a pilot line in 2025, with volume production targeted for 2027. The goal is to give Japan its own leading-edge manufacturing again, independent of TSMC and Samsung Foundry. Sceptics point out that Rapidus is trying to do in five years what its rivals took thirty to build.