Joint Seminar by VINNOVA & European Institute of Japanese Studies, September 8
Japan is betting big on “physical AI” in a public-private investment surge to recover its lost ground in research and innovation
How could it affect Europe in the global tech race?
• Speaker: Lennart Stenberg, Senior Research Analyst, European Institute of Japanese Studies
• Register for the seminar here by September 6
After three decades of relative stagnation the Japanese economy is finally showing signs of returning to a healthy dynamism. The clearest signs so far are a booming stock market, renewed interest among international investors and a transition from deflation to inflation. However, like Europe, Japan is being squeezed and has to maneuver between the growing dominance of USA in AI and China in manufacturing (and AI?).
How is Japan responding? Under its first ever female Prime Minister, Japan has recently adopted very ambitious growth and innovation strategies and budgets. Long-term roadmaps for joint private-public investments have been developed in collaboration with industry and academia for 17 priority areas. A key pillar cutting across many of the areas is ”physical AI”, where Japan judges that it can achieve a leading role globally by utilising strengths in robotics, high-quality data from precision manufacturing and product-related services as well as a reinvigorated semiconductor industry. As a sign of the determination to translate strategy to action, $ 6.2 billion is invested by the government in a new five-year project to develop frontier models for physical AI involving international collaboration.
The seminar will give an overview and analysis of the new policies, including the efforts to reverse the long-term decline in the relative standing of Japanese university research. The growing attention to economic security and how it affects Japan’s posture and actions towards international collaboration in research and innovation will also be discussed.
The presentation is provided by Lennart Stenberg. Lennart currently holds a research position at the European Institute of Japanese Studies (EIJS) at Stockholm School of Economics (Handelshögskolan i Stockholm). Prior to that Lennart has had a life-long career at the Swedish innovation agency and its predecessors dating back to 1971. A career which, among others, included a position as Swedish Science and Technology Counsellor in Japan during the years 1998-2003. Lennart is currently based primarily in Tokyo.
Welcome!