Rapidus 2nm Chip Manufacturing
Geography: Asia Pacific · East Asia · Japan
Rapidus Corporation, founded in 2022 with backing from Toyota, Sony, NTT, NEC, SoftBank, MUFG, Kioxia, and Denso, is Japan's bid to return to cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing after a two-decade absence. In collaboration with IBM and imec, Rapidus produced working 2nm chip prototypes in 2025 at unprecedented speed — showcased to customers in July 2025. In February 2026, the company secured ¥267.6 billion ($1.7 billion) in combined government and private sector funding.
The Rapidus fab, IIM-1 (Innovative Integration for Manufacturing), is under construction in Chitose, Hokkaido. The company is pursuing a gate-all-around (GAA) nanosheet architecture for its 2nm process, using IBM's technology transfer. The target is pilot production by late 2025 and mass production by 2027 — an extremely ambitious timeline that would make Rapidus roughly concurrent with TSMC and Samsung at the 2nm node.
The strategic significance is immense: Japan has not manufactured leading-edge logic chips since the 1990s. Rapidus represents a national project to regain sovereignty over advanced chip production, driven by geopolitical concerns about Taiwan dependence and the AI computing boom. Skeptics question whether Rapidus can close a 20-year gap in manufacturing experience, but the IBM partnership provides process technology, and Japan's existing materials and equipment ecosystem provides the surrounding supply chain. Success would be transformative; failure would be an extremely expensive lesson.
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