On May 28, 2025, the House of Councillors of Japan officially passed the Law on the Promotion of Research, Development and Application of Artificial Intelligence-related Technologies. This is Japan's first legislation to systematically focus on the field of artificial intelligence, marking a key step forward in the country's AI policy. Although this move has been interpreted by the outside world as an "attempt to achieve corner overtaking", in reality, the backwardness of Japan's AI technology and application cannot be ignored.
According to the 2024 White Paper on Information and Communications released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan, as of 2024, only 9.1% of Japanese citizens have used or have used generative AI, far lower than the 46.3% in the United States and 34.6% in Germany. This significant gap reveals Japan's lag in AI popularization, application, and industrial ecology. Therefore, Japan's use of legal means to promote the development of AI this time is not only a necessary move to cope with international competition, but also a strategic breakthrough to fight for the right to speak about future technology.
Figure: With the use rate of generative AI at only 9.1%, can Japan use the "Artificial Intelligence Law" to achieve an industrial counterattack?
1. Background of Japan's AI policy upgrade: from backward usage rate to national strategic height
Against the backdrop of increasingly fierce global AI competition, Japan lags significantly behind major countries in China, the United States and Europe in terms of technology development and application of generative AI. On the one hand, large Japanese technology companies such as NEC and Fujitsu have not yet been able to match the representative achievements of NVIDIA, OpenAI, Baidu, and Huawei in the field of AI computing power and basic models. On the other hand, its AI landing scenarios are still concentrated in manufacturing and a small number of government systems, and the commercialization and popularity are limited.
Therefore, the promulgation of the new law not only has legal significance, but also reflects the Japanese government's strategic shift to use policy as a lever to promote AI as a core competitiveness of the country. The new law establishes the "AI Strategy Headquarters" headed by the Prime Minister and with the participation of all cabinet members, with the aim of building a unified and efficient national AI promotion system by integrating resources across departments. This system design significantly improves the level of policy implementation and helps to achieve vertical coordination from scientific research to industry.
2. Detailed explanation of the legal content: Promote technological breakthroughs and prevent and control risks
The content of the Law on the Promotion of Research, Development and Application of Artificial Intelligence-related Technologies can be summarized as "promoting and regulating at the same time". In terms of promotion, the law proposes to support the research and development of cutting-edge technologies such as generative AI, large models, and edge AI, and encourage their application in key industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, transportation, and security. The Japanese government also plans to support enterprises, universities and research institutions to jointly develop internationally competitive AI core technologies through special funds and preferential tax policies.
Taking medical care as an example, the law encourages the introduction of AI-assisted systems in electronic medical records, medical image analysis, remote consultation and other fields to solve the problem of medical resources shortage caused by an aging society. Another example is in the manufacturing industry, Japan proposes to rely on AI to realize automatic optimization of production processes and fault prediction and maintenance, so as to revitalize the advantages of "lean manufacturing".
But at the same time, the new law also attaches great importance to AI risk governance, especially in the regulation of generative AI content. The law gives the government the power to investigate potential abuses such as fake images, fake voices, and copyright infringement, and can publicly notify the names of offending companies, building a "framework for the development and application of AI that can be held accountable". To a certain extent, this responds to the frequent abuse of AI deep fake technology around the world in 2024.
3. The real challenges of overtaking in corners: capital, talent and ecological disadvantages
Although the new law conveys a strong policy determination, Japan still faces multiple practical constraints in order to achieve "overtaking in corners".
The first is the lack of investment in R&D. According to Statista and OECD data, the United States will invest more than $60 billion in AI research and development in 2024, China will also invest more than $40 billion, while Japan will invest less than $5 billion, only about 8% of the United States. This funding gap has a direct impact on the development of basic models, the construction of computing power platforms, and the incubation of long-term innovation achievements.
The second is the AI talent pool and the limitations of the education system. Although prestigious universities such as the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University have AI research centers, Japan's attractiveness in attracting top AI researchers is far less than that of the United Kingdom and the United States, and Japanese language barriers and conservative research systems limit the international cooperation and influence of Japanese universities in the field of AI.
In addition, Japan's AI industry ecosystem is still "siloed". Different from the virtuous circle of "university-start-up-venture capital-large factory incubation" formed in Silicon Valley, Japanese AI companies are generally small, venture capital activity is not high, and large enterprises are relatively conservative, lacking a systematic incubation mechanism for AI startups. To a certain extent, this limits the speed of innovation and the formation of industrial scale.
4. Strategic linkage with semiconductors: Can AI be used to drive industrial revival?
It is worth noting that Japan's promotion of AI legislation can also be seen as part of its strategy to revitalize the semiconductor industry. In terms of AI chips, the global market is dominated by NVIDIA and AMD in the United States, and China is also rapidly advancing products such as Huawei Ascend and Cambrian. Although Japan has semiconductor companies such as Renesas and Socionext, there is an obvious technical gap in the field of AI chips.
Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has proposed a "next-generation semiconductor strategy" at the end of 2023 to promote the research and development of advanced processes and AI chips, and set up Rapidus to try to achieve breakthroughs in sub-2nm chip manufacturing. The introduction of the AI bill will help provide a policy basis for AI application scenarios, thereby providing "application traction" for domestic AI chips and promoting the formation of a closed loop of "computing power-algorithm-data-industry".
5. Implications for Global AI Governance: A Comparison of China, Japan, and U.S. Models
From a global perspective, although Japan's AI Law still needs to be improved in terms of technological impetus, its institutionalized exploration of AI ethics, data rights protection, and abuse governance is worthy of reference by other countries.
In contrast, the United States places more emphasis on innovation and market-driven, and the government indirectly supports AI development through means such as the CHIPS and Science Act. China, on the other hand, combines the national will and market mechanism to promote the integration of AI+ industries through the "Artificial Intelligence Development Plan". Japan's choice of legislation as the core means reflects its "cautious and inclusive" attitude towards the possible social risks of AI technology, and its model has certain reference value for countries such as Europe and South Korea that emphasize "technology governance".
6. Conclusion: From the starting point of the policy to the industrial turnaround, the key lies in implementation and coordination
Overall, the passage of the Act on the Promotion of Research, Development and Application of Artificial Intelligence-related Technologies is an important step in Japan's AI strategic layout, and it also reflects its ambition to reshape the global technology map with policy dividends.
Although Japan is still at a disadvantage in terms of generative AI usage, AI talent pool, and basic chip capabilities, with the help of high-level government promotion, legislative support, and the improvement of the industrial support system, there are still opportunities to achieve "differentiated breakthroughs" in specific vertical fields (such as manufacturing AI and medical AI).
In the future, whether Japan can truly use the artificial intelligence law to complete the transition from a policy starting point to an industrial turnaround will depend on its ability to implement technology research and development, build an industrial ecology, and promote international coordination. This will also have a profound impact on the global semiconductor and AI industry pattern, which deserves the industry's continued attention.
