Microsoft To Invest $10 Billion In Japan For AI, Cyber Defense Expansion (reuters.com) 10
Microsoft plans to invest $10 billion in Japan from 2026 to 2029 to expand AI infrastructure, boost local cloud capacity, train 1 million engineers and developers, and deepen cybersecurity cooperation with the Japanese government. Reuters reports: The investment includes the training of 1 million engineers and developers by 2030, Microsoft said, which was unveiled during a visit to Tokyo by Vice Chair and President Brad Smith. In a statement, the company said the plan aligns with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's goal to boost growth through advanced, strategic technologies while safeguarding national security.
Microsoft will work with domestic firms including SoftBank and Sakura Internet to expand Japan-based AI computing capacity, allowing Ecompanies and government agencies to keep sensitive data within the country while accessing Microsoft Azure services, it said. It will also deepen cooperation with Japanese authorities on sharing intelligence related to cyber threats and crime prevention.
Microsoft will work with domestic firms including SoftBank and Sakura Internet to expand Japan-based AI computing capacity, allowing Ecompanies and government agencies to keep sensitive data within the country while accessing Microsoft Azure services, it said. It will also deepen cooperation with Japanese authorities on sharing intelligence related to cyber threats and crime prevention.
1m cybersecurity engineers (Score:5, Funny)
All trained to secure Microsoft products. Hopefully that's enough...
Good at enforcing rules, but Japanese folks... (Score:2)
They're especially good at enforcing silly rules. The rule-making process in Japan sometimes produces terrible rules, which then get enforced with enthusiasm. Or is it worse when the rules get case-by-case treatment that can make them effectively meaningless except as threats?
So anyway, I think the opening joke was weak and the story itself didn't get any attention in Japan. The FP numbers work out at a thousand bucks per "cybersecurity engineer", which is just silly. If the decimal place slipped twice and
Train people??? (Score:4, Insightful)
And there I was under the impression that AI makes them all obsolete...
Re:Train people??? (Score:5, Insightful)
10B/1M = 10,000 per "engineer" (*). I don't know about you, but I don't get out of bed for that kind of value. Moreover, it's Microsoft money, meaning it's probably just vouchers for time on the cloud, as if that's real money.
(*) it's actually less, the budget is likely going to pay for advertising and events etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. About what I expect.
No way. (Score:4, Interesting)
No way they are going to hire 1M meat sacks. They have ~250k currently and that includes sales, etc. So I wonder where they pulled this number from and why Japan?
Data and AI soverignty (Score:3)
Speculation: Microsoft will be 'investing' in major countries around the world to have a local to the country cloud and AI compute.
It will allow Microsoft to sell to the government and corporations when the country passes the eventual law requiring data storage, personal data, government cloud and AI models to reside within the country for economic and security reasons.
Second speculation: Microsoft and other world's largest consumer of CPUs, memory chips, GPUs, computer motherboards, networking chips, etc. will have supply chain shortages crippling their business in 2 years if the AI use/consumption keeps growing.
$10 Billion? (Score:2)
It takes $10 Billion to remove MS's alleged software from Japan?
Turtles all the way down (Score:2)
Does anyone actually believe any of this? Or anything, lately ?
Who does Microsoft think they are? Apple?
There are no details, I actually clicked the link , the summary is the entire "story". Another AI nothingburger.