A ball bearing with a 0.6mm bore, smaller than a sesame seed. One firm in a former coal town in Hokkaido reportedly makes around 70% of the world's sub-millimeter bearings. Here's how.
Tokyo Ohka Kogyo is No. 1 in photoresist with a 24.7% share and No. 2 in EUV resist with 28%. How a 1936 maker of coal-lamp battery material became a chokepoint in the AI chip supply chain.
Telomelysin, a common-cold virus reprogrammed to destroy cancer cells, has won the world's first approval for esophageal cancer. It took 35 years, one surgeon's idea, and an Okayama University startup pushing through a regulatory maze.
Japan's H3 Rocket No. 6 was postponed over poor weather. The booster-less test flight carries six small satellites: deorbit sails, a 1 km space tether, a day-and-night telescope, and a French sat that hunts ships gone dark. Here is what each one does.
Sanyo Special Steel, Japan's No.1 maker of bearing steel and a world leader in steel cleanliness, will be absorbed by Nippon Steel and dissolved on April 1, 2027. The model for the famous novel The Grand Family, it once suffered postwar Japan's largest bankruptcy. Why give up the name now? A look at China's steel glut and an unexpected Swedish thread.
Intel switched on the world's first High-NA EUV machine; TSMC skipped the $400M tool. Being slow to the newest lithography once cost Intel a lost decade. Is TSMC repeating that mistake? Its confidence rests on Japan: Mitsui Chemicals' EUV pellicle and the HOYA/Shin-Etsu/AGC mask-blank near-monopoly (about 90% share).
The Bank of Japan began selling its ETFs, yet its holdings ballooned past 110 trillion yen, over 8% of the Tokyo market. Why the Fed and ECB never bought stocks, how Switzerland differs, and whether central banks should own equities at all.
Mitsui Chemicals was first in the world to mass-produce the EUV pellicle, a free-standing film tens of nanometers thick. From the ASML license to the carbon-nanotube pivot and a 2027 upgrade, here is why one invisible bottleneck sits with a single Japanese plant.
Not TSMC, not ASML. A Japanese chemical maker with ~$240M in sales quietly supplies about 70% of the world's photoresist sensitizer—the ingredient inside the ingredient that prints every advanced chip.
Japan discards 650,000 tons of small electronics a year, yet recovers only about 15%. The rest mostly leaks abroad through an untracked invisible flow. On June 5, 2026, the Environment Ministry picked six pilots enlisting movers and couriers to keep the metals home.
Kobe Beef and Miyazaki are on menus worldwide, yet Mishima and Iga beef never leave Japan. As wagyu exports hit record highs, here is why some brands cross the ocean and others stay home, from breeds and slaughterhouses to the stalled China resumption.