September 17, 2025 /SemiMedia/ — Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) said it will provide Micron Technology with 536 billion yen ($3.6 billion) in funding to boost research and expand production at its Hiroshima plant, aiming to accelerate the rollout of advanced memory chips.

Micron plans to invest a total of 1.5 trillion yen by the end of fiscal 2029, with shipments of cutting-edge DRAM expected to begin around mid-2028. The company targets a peak capacity of 40,000 wafers per month by early 2030.

The government support includes up to 500 billion yen in subsidies for capital spending, covering about one-third of the total, and an additional 36 billion yen over five years for R&D. The program will focus on developing high-bandwidth, energy-efficient DRAM designed for GPUs in data centers and autonomous driving systems.

Micron executives said the backing would accelerate efforts to supply high-performance memory for the AI era. METI noted that Micron sources about 80% of its raw materials in Japan and has been actively hiring and training local talent, which influenced the subsidy decision.

The Hiroshima fab is expected to operate in mass production for at least a decade, with the ability to raise output if supply disruptions occur. With this round of aid, total subsidies secured by Micron in Japan now amount to 774.5 billion yen, alongside previous funding programs that also supported TSMC’s Kumamoto fab and Kioxia’s Yokkaichi site.