Before it can manufacture a single 2nm chip for hire, Rapidus needs paying customers, and it is betting that design help will bring them in. The Japanese state-backed foundry has enlisted 17 chip design houses to assist clients in preparing silicon for its process. The lineup spans Synopsys and Cadence Design Systems of the United States, India’s Infosys and HCL Technologies, and Japan’s Dai Nippon Printing and Toppan, alongside engineering firms including Malaysia’s Oppstar, SkyeChip and Infinecs, India’s MosChip and Quest Global, and Japan’s NSW.
Those partners will work alongside customers to shape layouts that suit the way Rapidus builds wafers, with the hope that support work converts into volume orders. So far the company has yet to name a single buyer that has committed.
With roughly $15 billion in government backing and a plant in Hokkaido, Rapidus expects to begin client production during the second half of Japan’s fiscal year that opens in April 2027. Test lines already run with IBM, whose technology the company licenses.
“The biggest question for Rapidus is still who will actually fill the fab,” Nori Chiou, investment director at White Oak Capital, told Reuters.
The competitive picture is unforgiving. TSMC, Samsung, and Intel’s foundry arm already turn out chips at this level, and some would-be customers have told Reuters they cannot shift the whole of their workload off TSMC. Analysts also caution that bringing a new fab up to stable, profitable output is brutally hard. Rapidus has set a target of listing its shares by March 2032, and a parliamentarian who leads the ruling party’s chip caucus, Daishiro Yamagiwa, has raised the prospect of an American stock listing and US-based plants.
