Press Conference by Minister Akazawa (Excerpt)

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

10:00–10:17 a.m.
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Press Conference Room, METI Main Building

Opening Remarks

Japan’s Official Participation in Expo 2030 Riyadh

A Cabinet meeting today endorsed Japan’s official participation in Expo 2030 Riyadh. This Expo will be held in Riyadh, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, under the theme “Foresight for Tomorrow.” The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) will proceed with preparations in collaboration with relevant ministries to further deepen international understanding of Japan and carry forward the achievements of Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan.

Question-and-Answer Session

Suggestions on the Development of Domestic AI

Q: Let me ask you a question regarding the domestic development of AI, a topic we covered in this morning’s edition of our newspaper. In that article, we made suggestions that autonomy in AI development should be ensured and that ethics and values rooted in Japanese society should be reflected in this. I would appreciate it if you could share your views on these suggestions, the necessity of developing AI domestically, and how we should engage with AI going forward.

A: We are now entering a phase in which AI may be introduced across virtually all fields. I believe this makes it crucial for Japan’s businesses to promote competitive, domestically developed AI, from the perspectives of ensuring industrial competitiveness and economic security. In the course of such development, it is extremely important to give due consideration to the points you raised in the article, such as reflecting ethics and values rooted in Japanese society. The government has also set out a policy, in the public comments presented last month as part of the formulation of a basic plan on AI, to develop reliable foundation models that take into account Japan’s culture and practices. In particular, as field-level data becomes increasingly important for the widespread adoption of AI, METI will leverage valuable data from manufacturing industries in which Japan has a competitive advantage, and from databases related to social issues, such as the aging population and disasters, to promote efforts to provide domestically developed AI with international competitiveness. As I have been saying for over ten years, Japan’s winning strategy in this age of big data and AI lies in the areas of population aging and disasters. While big data and AI are at the core, AI does not independently search out all data from around the world; instead, we must choose areas of big data to feed into AI for its effective use. In this regard, by global standards Japan has a large volume of data related to the elderly population and disasters. This means we can use AI to develop high-quality elderly care plans precisely tailored to individuals and sell them globally, among many other applications to be explored. In the disaster domain as well, we can accumulate AI-based disaster response technologies and know-how, which I believe will help Japan gain a competitive edge in the future. That is why I have been emphasizing for many years that Japan should compete in these areas. In other words, through these initiatives, Japan has a high chance of achieving national wealth in the age of big data and AI by developing world-class tools for elderly care, disaster response, and other promising domains and selling them to countries such as China, which has a population ten times larger than Japan’s and is projected to face the challenges of an aging society. These measures will also contribute to world peace. Furthermore, I believe that Japan should seriously consider providing domestically developed AI-based disaster response technologies to countries which are struck by disasters such as the tsunami originating near the island of Java, which claimed more than 300,000 lives. This is another area in which Japan’s strengths can be fully leveraged. Besides these areas, Japan’s safety-critical manufacturing, including automotive and aircraft components, has earned an exceptionally high level of trust worldwide through the expertise of professionals. By carefully choosing such domains with strong competitive potential and using AI in them, Japan can develop a fundamental strategy—a point I have been emphasizing for more than a decade and wish to reiterate here. Therefore, domestically developed AI, just as you pointed out, is truly an extremely important point to consider.