Digital Nations 2026 – Accelerating the Digital Leap in Japan

Japan’s digital leap has evolved into a strategic endeavour to reposition the country as a global leader in the digital era. It presents the opportunity to shift from being primarily a technology adopter to becoming a standards setter for digital nations. Achieving this will depend on Japan’s ability to harness its distinctive competitive advantages and adopt international best practices through collaborative platforms. Specifically, it involves the following:

• Capitalising on comparative advantages, including next-generation connectivity beyond 5G, frontier technology deployment such as quantum and autonomous systems, and demographic technology leadership. This also includes operator contributions, such as NTT Docomo’s AI-enabled network optimisation, KDDI’s satellite-to-smartphone connectivity, SoftBank’s expansion of AI-ready data centres, and Rakuten Mobile’s cloud-native innovations.
• Applying global best practices to accelerate infrastructure deployment, strengthen a digital first culture across sectors, and build digital trust by learning from leading peers in Asia Pacific and beyond.
• Using international cooperation to shape global norms for AI, cybersecurity, semiconductors and future connectivity including 6G. This should ensure Japanese strengths influence international frameworks rather than remaining domestically contained.