Japan announces $3.9bn subsidies to chip joint venture Rapidus

Tokyo: Japan will make available additional subsidies of up to 590 billion yen ($3.9 billion) to the semiconductor joint venture Rapidus, the economy ministry said Tuesday.

The announcement comes as Japan competes with the United States and Europe to attract chipmakers with tens of billions of dollars in state support.

Rapidus involves a host of Japanese tech firms as well as US giant IBM and aims to make state-of-the-art two-nanometre logic chips in the northern region of Hokkaido later this decade.