June 2, 2026
WASHINGTON – The Japanese government intends to participate in a U.S. national project called the “Genesis Mission,” which is aimed at accelerating scientific discoveries and technological innovation using artificial intelligence, according to sources.
Japan will become the project’s first international partner. Over the next five years, the Japanese and U.S. governments will invest a total of $1 billion (about ¥160 billion) in joint development of AI and other technologies.
The aim is for Japan and the United States to cooperate and gain an advantage in the technological supremacy race with China.
Japanese senior officials from the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry and the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry are scheduled to visit the United States in early June to make the announcement alongside officials from the U.S. Energy Department, which is overseeing the project.
The Genesis Mission is one of the national projects championed by U.S. President Donald Trump. The U.S. administration places great importance on the project, viewing this initiative as on par with the “Manhattan Project,” which developed the atomic bomb, and the “Apollo Program,” which achieved humanity’s first moon landing.
The Genesis Mission aims to link scientific data held by U.S. national research institutes as well as supercomputers with AI to drastically reduce the time required for experiments and calculations, thereby generating a large volume of groundbreaking results.
The scope of the project spans 26 fields, including semiconductor development and the exploration of critical minerals. Major U.S. IT companies such as OpenAI and Google LLC will collaborate on the project.
Japan is to contribute $500 million and collaborate in fields such as quantum technology, nuclear fusion and biotechnology. Participation offers Japan the advantage of leveraging the abundant data and computational resources of the United States.
The United States aims to strengthen its position as a hub for technological innovation and counter China, which is rapidly rising in cutting-edge fields including AI.