INSTITUTION PROFILE / MATERIALS INFORMATICS
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)
The ministry that sets Japan's direction for materials informatics and asks for the budget
Materials informatics (MI) means using AI and data to speed up the development of new materials. METI is the Japanese government ministry in charge of industrial policy, and it does not do materials research itself. Its job is to set out a direction for MI and to ask for the money to pursue it. The research is carried out by companies, universities and research institutes, largely through bodies METI supervises, such as NEDO. This profile looks at one question: how far METI's influence over MI reaches, and what it cannot decide.
- METI in 30 seconds
- What kind of body it is: the four types of influence
- What it does for MI
- How far its influence reaches (powers and geography)
- Who is involved and how the money flows
- Outlook
- Glossary, references and claim-to-source audit
1. METI in 30 seconds
METI puts forward the direction and the budget request for MI, but it neither sets the overall direction alone nor approves the budget. On 31 August 2026, in its budget request for FY2027 (year to March 2028), METI asked for ¥7.0 billion (new) for a project on "high-performance composite new materials using AI and confidential computing". The project would run through a grant to NEDO, which then commissions companies, universities and others, for six years from FY2027 to FY2032 Sourced. But this is a request, not an approved budget Not yet confirmed. The request documents also say that the project follows the investment roadmap that the Cabinet's Japan Growth Strategy Headquarters decided, and the Cabinet Office's Materials Innovation Strategy Sourced.
2. What kind of body it is: the four types of influence
Unlike the companies in this series, the institutions that appear in MI coverage do not develop materials themselves. What separates them is the route by which they influence the field, and that gives four types. METI belongs to the "policy and regulation" type.
What METI decides is what to emphasise and how much to ask for. The budget itself is approved by the Diet, Japan's parliament, and the day-to-day work of choosing research themes and handing out money falls to the agencies METI supervises. So METI is strong at setting direction, but it has no final say over the money and no direct hand in the research itself.
3. What it does for MI
The METI-related MI activities we could confirm from published documents are the following three Sourced.
| Activity | Timing and scale | Content | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Investment roadmap item "Composite new materials using AI and related technologies" (decided by the Japan Growth Strategy Headquarters) | Decided 21 July 2026 Public and private investment of ¥5.2 trillion by FY2040 (an estimate) | Build a system that develops new materials ten times faster than before. Investment areas include foundation models and AI agents for materials, datasets, and a confidential-computing platform. The ripple effect on the economy is estimated at ¥14.4 trillion | Decided by the Cabinet; the amounts are estimates |
| FY2027 budget request Project on high-performance composite new materials using AI and confidential computing | ¥7.0 billion (new) Six years, FY2027 to FY2032 Materials Industry Division, Manufacturing Industries Bureau | Develop the foundation for confidential computing, which lets companies analyse data with AI across company lines. Link measurement and analysis instruments with simulators. Collect large research datasets, including materials for post-5G/6G, and make them AI-ready. Draft rules on intellectual property and data handling. Carried out through NEDO | A request only; not yet approved |
| International standardisation (proposal) | Recommendations of 12 June 2026 Who does it, and when, is open | The work plan in an expert panel's recommendations marks METI (by a one-character abbreviation, which the document does not define) as the lead for standards on composite new materials and for rules on data sharing through confidential computing. The plan is described as prepared as a proposal to the ministries and agencies concerned | A proposal, not a decision |
Materials companies do not want to show competitors their formulations and process conditions. Yet AI gets better the more data it has. That is why attention has turned to technology that lets several companies pool their data for AI analysis without revealing what is in it (confidential computing). The request documents describe the aim as enabling "secure data sharing and AI analysis between competitors and between upstream and downstream companies" Sourced. For a materials supplier, success could open a route to "benefit from industry-wide data without handing over our own". But the platform is still to be built, and whether it works in practice has not been shown Not yet confirmed.
4. How far its influence reaches (powers and geography)
| Aspect | What METI has | What METI does not have |
|---|---|---|
| Powers | Responsibility for overall policy on science and technology in mining and manufacturing, grants for R&D and the spread of results (Article 4 of its Establishment Act). It requests budgets and sets out project direction | The power to approve the budget (the Diet decides). The power to set the national materials strategy (decided by Cabinet Office bodies). Decision of the investment roadmap (the Growth Strategy Headquarters) |
| Funding | It can request the money for grants to NEDO and other supervised agencies | Choosing who is funded (this project is designed to go through NEDO; the request does not say how awardees will be selected) |
| Geography | Japan: its policy and budget. The request names "national research institutes, universities, private companies and others" as the implementers | Other countries' policies, or obligations on foreign companies. It can propose international standards but cannot set them |
| Supervised bodies | NEDO and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), both independent administrative agencies | NIMS and JST do not appear on METI's list of supervised agencies (they have their own profiles in this series) |
| Size | 8,068 authorised posts across the ministry (end of FY2026) | We could not confirm how many staff work on MI |
Several similar amounts appear in this article, and each means something different. ¥7.0 billion is one year's request for FY2027 and has not been approved. ¥5.2 trillion is an estimate of combined public and private investment up to FY2040, not a government budget. ¥14.4 trillion is the estimated ripple effect of that investment on the whole economy, not sales or profit. ¥4 trillion or more is the long-term sales target for the high-performance composite materials market, as stated in the request. All of them are estimates or targets for the future Not yet confirmed.
5. Who is involved and how the money flows
The request documents describe the structure as follows: the state gives a grant to NEDO, and NEDO commissions national research institutes, universities, private companies and others Sourced. In other words, METI does not choose the participating companies itself. The awardees will be chosen only after the budget is approved, so no participating companies have been decided Not yet confirmed. For this reason, this profile names no companies; the request documents name none.
6. Outlook
| What can be read | Primary source behind it | Category |
|---|---|---|
| It is not settled whether the ¥7.0 billion will be approved as requested | A budget request is a step before budget compilation. We could not confirm approval of the FY2027 budget as of 22 October 2026 | Not yet confirmed |
| If the project goes ahead, it aims for ten-times-faster development, 15 materials launched, and sales of ¥4 trillion or more | The outcome targets (short, medium and long term) in the request documents | Not yet confirmed |
| The actual themes and participating companies will probably be decided through NEDO's open calls | The structure in the request documents (state, then NEDO, then national institutes, universities and companies) | Inference |
| MI policy will probably stay shared among the Cabinet, the Cabinet Office, the education ministry and METI | The recommendations' work plan divides the lead roles with one-character marks that appear to stand for the Cabinet Office, the education ministry, METI and others (the document does not define the marks) | Inference |
7. Glossary
- Materials informatics (MI)
- Analysing materials data with AI and statistics to speed up the search for and design of new materials.
- Confidential computing
- A family of techniques that let several organisations analyse their combined data without revealing it to one another.
- AI-ready
- Data that has been put into a form AI can use directly, for example with a consistent format and added descriptions.
- Budget request
- The request each ministry sends to the Ministry of Finance for the next fiscal year. Budget compilation and Diet deliberation still lie between it and an approved budget.
- Public-private investment roadmap
- A document that sets out, for each of Japan's 17 strategic fields, an estimate of public and private investment and the policies to support it.
- National R&D agency
- A corporation that carries out national R&D. It is not a ministry; it works under the supervision of a minister.
8. References
- e-Gov Law Search Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry Establishment Act (Act No. 99 of 1999), Article 3 (mission) and Article 4, paragraph 1, items 21 to 24 (duties on science and technology in mining and manufacturing) (in Japanese). https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/law/411AC0000000099
- METI About the FY2027 budget request and tax reform requests (published 31 August 2026, updated 29 September 2026) (in Japanese). https://www.meti.go.jp/main/yosangaisan/fy2027/index.html
- METI FY2027 METI budget request: summary (METI-related total, FY2026 initial budget, and Annex 2 listing the project on high-performance composite new materials using AI and confidential computing at 7,000,000 thousand yen) (in Japanese). https://www.meti.go.jp/main/yosangaisan/fy2027/pdf/01.pdf
- METI FY2027 budget request: PR materials, general account. The project on high-performance composite new materials using AI and confidential computing: ¥7.0 billion (new), Materials Industry Division, objectives, outcome targets, project period and scheme (in Japanese). https://www.meti.go.jp/main/yosangaisan/fy2027/pr/pdf/pr_ippan.pdf
- Cabinet Secretariat Japan Growth Strategy Headquarters / Japan Growth Strategy Council (Cabinet approval of the Growth Strategy and the Headquarters' decision on the investment roadmap, both 21 July 2026) (in Japanese). https://www.cas.go.jp/jp/seisaku/nipponseichosenryaku/index.html
- Japan Growth Strategy Headquarters Public-private investment roadmap for the "main products and technologies" in the 17 strategic fields: Materials (critical minerals and component materials), item 6, composite new materials using AI and related technologies (in Japanese). https://www.cas.go.jp/jp/seisaku/nipponseichosenryaku/pdf/rm2026.pdf
- Cabinet Office, Secretariat of Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Materials Innovation Strategy by Establishing a "Knowledge Value Chain" (outline, 4 June 2025; decided by the Council for Integrated Innovation Strategy). https://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/material/matstrategy2025.pdf
- Cabinet Office, Experts Meeting on Materials Strategy Recommendations on measures to promote the Materials Innovation Strategy (12 June 2026) (in Japanese). The work plan is described as prepared as a proposal to the ministries and agencies concerned. https://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/material/material_2026_suishin.pdf
- METI Main organisational and staffing changes for FY2026 (December 2025; total authorised posts rise from 8,013 at the end of FY2025 to 8,068 at the end of FY2026) (in Japanese). https://www.meti.go.jp/main/yosan/yosan_fy2026/pdf/05.pdf
- METI Independent administrative agencies and other bodies supervised by METI (updated 6 October 2025) (in Japanese). https://www.meti.go.jp/intro/index_houjin.html
9. Claim-to-source audit
| Claim in the article | Category | Source |
|---|---|---|
| The Establishment Act is METI's legal basis, and METI is responsible for policy, R&D grants and similar duties on science and technology in mining and manufacturing | Sourced | Reference 1 https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/law/411AC0000000099 |
| Publication date of the FY2027 budget request (31 August 2026) | Sourced | Reference 2 https://www.meti.go.jp/main/yosangaisan/fy2027/index.html |
| METI-related total (¥3.07 trillion in the FY2026 initial budget); the project's request of 7,000,000 thousand yen (¥7.0 billion) | Sourced | Reference 3 https://www.meti.go.jp/main/yosangaisan/fy2027/pdf/01.pdf |
| ¥7.0 billion (new), six years from FY2027 to FY2032, the Materials Industry Division, the outcome targets (ten times faster, 15 launches, sales of ¥4 trillion or more), the scheme from the state to NEDO to institutes, universities and companies, and the link to the roadmap and the Cabinet Office strategy | Sourced | Reference 4 https://www.meti.go.jp/main/yosangaisan/fy2027/pr/pdf/pr_ippan.pdf |
| Cabinet approval of the Growth Strategy and the Headquarters' decision on the roadmap (21 July 2026) | Sourced | Reference 5 https://www.cas.go.jp/jp/seisaku/nipponseichosenryaku/index.html |
| Composite new materials using AI: ¥5.2 trillion in public and private investment by FY2040, a ¥14.4 trillion ripple effect, the ten-times target, investment areas and policy package | Sourced (amounts are estimates) | Reference 6 https://www.cas.go.jp/jp/seisaku/nipponseichosenryaku/pdf/rm2026.pdf |
| The Materials Innovation Strategy (June 2025) promotes materials DX centred on a data platform | Sourced | Reference 7 https://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/material/matstrategy2025.pdf |
| In the 12 June 2026 recommendations, the lead marks for standards and confidential-computing rules, and the note that the work plan is a proposal | Sourced | Reference 8 https://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/material/material_2026_suishin.pdf |
| Authorised posts: 8,013 at the end of FY2025 and 8,068 at the end of FY2026 | Sourced | Reference 9 https://www.meti.go.jp/main/yosan/yosan_fy2026/pdf/05.pdf |
| NEDO and AIST are independent administrative agencies supervised by METI; NIMS and JST are not on the list | Sourced | Reference 10 https://www.meti.go.jp/intro/index_houjin.html |
| The four types of institution, and the arrangement in Fig. 2 | Our calculation | Our own classification |
| Explanations of confidential computing, AI-ready data, budget requests and similar terms | Sourced | This article's general explanation (based on the terms used in reference 4) |
| Approval of the FY2027 budget, whether the ¥7.0 billion is approved as requested, and whether the targets are met | Not yet confirmed | Reference 4 gives a request and targets; approval could not be confirmed, and this article does not estimate it |
| The awardees, the number of staff working on MI, and AIST's role in this project | Not yet confirmed | Not stated in references 4 and 9; this article does not estimate them |
| The two inferences in the outlook (section 6): selection through NEDO's calls, and shared roles among ministries | Inference | This article's reading of the scheme in reference 4 and the role marks in reference 8 |
Last updated 22 October 2026 / Troy Technical
Figures come from published documents of METI, the Cabinet Secretariat and the Cabinet Office. Items marked "Inference" are this article's reading of the primary information, not statements by METI. The FY2027 request has not been approved and may change.