Leaders of eleven top Japanese companies met on May 31, 2021 to plan a new cooperative corporation to coordinate nationwide advances in quantum technology and applications. The group intends to initiate a formal corporate establishment meeting this summer.
The participating leaders listed several goals, including information sharing among industry leaders, cross-industrial application research, and discussion of ethical issues, standardization, and intellectual property issues. Fujitsu’s representative, Shimada Taro, emphasized that the upcoming organization would emphasize cooperation among participants in applications of research advances, not only R&D.
The representatives mentioned their own strengths in fields like quantum cryptography and computing. They also mentioned a sense of urgency that Japanese corporations need to break free from sluggish application of their research and build a united front to compete successfully on the world stage.
The eleven institutions represented were JSR Corp., Dai-ichi Life Holdings, Inc., Tokyo Marine Holdings, Toshiba Corp., Toyota Motor Corp., NEC Corp., Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. (NTT), Hitachi, Ltd., Fujitsu Ltd., Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings, and Mizuho Financial Group. A member of the Prime Minister’s cabinet also attended the partly in-person, partly online meeting.
Hopefully, IP legal issues such as licensing and patent prosecution move ahead well in this attempt at nationwide teamwork.
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Contact: Taro Yaguchi
Sources
Okawara, Katsuyuki. “東芝、トヨタなど11社が「量子技術による新産業創出協議会」を設立へ オールジャパンで“量子イノベーション技術立国”の実現目指す [11 companies including Toshiba, Toyota to start ‘quantum technology new industries development cooperative association,’ aiming to rally Japan to be a ‘quantum innovation tech core country’].”Cloud Watch, Impress Corp. June 1, 2021. Accessed June 3, 2021.
Also, similar content in the press release of Fujitsu Corp. at https://pr.fujitsu.com/jp/news/2021/05/31.html, May 31, 2021. Accessed June 3, 2021.
Header image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.
