Market News

An image of how Toyota’s smart city will look | Photo: Toyota Motor Corp Toyota Motor Corp on Tuesday began construction of a smart city at the foot of Mt Fuji in central Japan as a testing ground for new technologies including robotics and artificial intelligence. About 360 people including Toyota employees will initially move…

Japan must introduce carbon pricing and fiscal incentives for green investment to achieve its goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2050, private-sector members of a key government panel said on Wednesday. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga last December instructed his environment and industry ministries to work on a plan in 2021 to create a carbon pricing scheme,…

Excess energy from windfarms could be stored as hydrogen | Getty Images Last year was a record breaker for the UK’s wind power industry. Wind generation reached its highest ever level , at 17.2GW on 18 December, while wind power achieved its biggest share of UK energy production, at 60% on 26 August. Yet occasionally…

Supplied photo shows Daiwa House Industry Co.’s building site for Japan’s largest data-center campus under construction in Inzai, Chiba Prefecture, in December 2020. | KYODO In just under a decade, a vast area of idle land outside Tokyo where trucks loaded with building materials rush to and fro will become the site of Japan’s biggest…

Japan has traditionally been a cash society, although the nation’s banks are moving towards electronic payments and digitalization. | GETTY IMAGES The coronavirus pandemic has encouraged more cash-loving Japanese to move away from banknotes and coins, giving a boost for banks in their drive toward digitalization, the industry’s lobby group chief said. “A trend toward…

Shares in tech startups have surged in the past year as Japan has pushed for digitalization. | BLOOMBERG Japan’s hot startup stocks have two things in common: They do business in areas that could be described as mundane, and they’ve pushed their founders into the league of the ultrawealthy. Take AI Inside Inc., which helps…

A new law took effect Monday to ensure that information technology giants do business with small companies on fair terms. | KYODO A new law to ensure that technology giants do business with small companies on fair terms came into force Monday. The law for the transparency and fairness of digital platform services obligates tech…

Toyoda Gosei’s Ohira plant | Photo: Business Wire Toyoda Gosei Co Ltd’s production subsidiary in eastern Japan, Toyoda Gosei East Japan Co Ltd, is establishing a new plant in Ohira, Miyagi Prefecture where its main customer, Toyota Motor East Japan Inc, is located. Construction of the plant will begin in April and production of radiator…

A cold snap in Japan revealed a flaw in how Asian countries plan to address climate change. | QUARTZ Households across Japan are likely to get hit by massive electric bills this month, after the price of wholesale electricity there spiked from about 13 cents per kilowatt-hour in December to an unprecedented peak of more…

Panasonic Corp.’s self-driving delivery robot runs in a residential area in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture. | KYODO Panasonic Corp. said Monday it will start trials in February of home deliveries by a self-driving robot in a residential area in Kanagawa Prefecture, as the coronavirus pandemic has raised demand for services with reduced or no human-to-human contact.…