Japan’s state-backed chipmaker Rapidus has partnered with 17 design firms to secure buyers for its planned two-nanometre foundry. The venture holds 15 billion dollars in government funding.

Executives must book production orders before commercial fabrication starts in the second half of the next fiscal year.

Partners include American design software provider Synopsys and Indian technology services group Infosys. These alliances allow Rapidus to offer external customers design support alongside wafer fabrication. Early software integration resolves bottlenecks before physical manufacturing starts in Chitose, Hokkaido. Rapidus is developing its two-nanometre process with IBM and has already begun pilot line operations.

Landing customer commitments remains the primary operational hurdle. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co dominates cutting-edge contract manufacturing. South Korea’s Samsung Electronics started producing two-nanometre chips last year, and Intel continues its own foundry expansion. Rapidus is pitching its capacity to consumer electronics and enterprise hardware designers shut out of production queues at TSMC.

Switching supplier allocations to an untested foundry carries heavy risks for device makers. Global tech brands operate on strict product refresh cycles. Fabrication delays or yield faults quickly derail device launches across retail channels. Hardware brands want supply chain alternatives to hedge geopolitical tension around the Taiwan Strait. Still, migrating proprietary chip designs away from established foundries carries significant financial exposure.

National market share in global semiconductor manufacturing has fallen from roughly 50 per cent in the 1980s to below 10 per cent today. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is relying on Rapidus to anchor a broader industrial revival. That effort links directly to domestic artificial intelligence initiatives like the Noetra robotics project.

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