Press Conference by Minister Saito (Excerpt)

*Note: This is a provisional translation for reference purposes only.

9:10 to 9:16 a.m.
Friday, May 10, 2024
Press Conference Room, METI Main Building

Opening Remarks

Approval of a plan based on the Economic Security Promotion Act

At the beginning, I would like to mention two points.
First, under the Economic Security Promotion Act, we recently decided to offer support to a plan submitted by SoftBank Corporation to develop computational resources that can be accessed by a wide variety of AI developers. This decision follows five plans, including one formulated by SAKURA internet Inc. on April 19.
With this decision, we expect to achieve the goal set last year of “aiming at the development of computational resources at a cumulative scale of 60 E FLOPS by the end of FY2027” that the Semiconductor and Digital Industry Strategy Review Conference upheld as part of the domestic target of developing such resources needed to build generative AI models.
Developing the necessary computational resources in Japan for building generative AI models is extremely important from the perspectives of economic security and industrial competitiveness enhancement. METI will continue to work quickly on this initiative, including promoting the use of generative AI in Japan.

2024 White Papers on Small and Medium Enterprises and Small Enterprises

Second, a Cabinet Decision was made on the 2024 White Papers on Small and Medium Enterprises and Small Enterprises today.
These papers this year analyze the effects of enhancing earning power through efforts to improve productivity including investments in labor saving to address the growing labor shortage. Based on the analysis results this time, METI will strive to encourage SMEs and small businesses to not limit their horizons, to strengthen their earning power, and realize sustainable wage hikes.
As for detailed information, the administrative staff will provide a briefing separately, so please ask the staff.
I will end my remarks here.

Question-and-Answer Session

Q: What is the scale of the support for the computational resources you mentioned earlier?

A: For the approved plan this time, the amount of support is up to 42.1 billion yen.