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July 04, 2026
 

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Diane Coyle
As digital technologies become essential, governments must strategically invest in infrastructure, expanding its scope to include intangible assets like software and data to support economic growth.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 31, 2025
Building infrastructure for the AI age
Broadband, mobile networks and data centers are now as integral to daily life as roads and power grids.
Historical examples show that technological advances often lead to significant but gradual changes, sometimes accompanied by social and economic disruptions.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 12, 2024
Will the AI revolution lead to greater prosperity?
Historical examples show that technological advances often lead to significant but gradual changes, sometimes accompanied by social and economic disruptions.
U.S. President Joe Biden makes an appearance at an infrastructure construction project in Woodstock, New Hampshire, in November 2021. Bridges and sewage systems may seem unglamorous, but common assets such as these will form the basis of economic growth for years to come.
COMMENTARY / World
May 1, 2024
The West¡¯s new infrastructure imperative
A dim future awaits any society that allows its infrastructure to degrade and underinvests in new needs.
Tech behemoths have lavished their CEOs with astronomical salaries under the guise of retaining top talent, instead of spreading the wealth.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 25, 2024
Tech CEOs need to start sharing the wealth
The time has come to curb Big Tech¡¯s market power and establish the mechanisms to prevent the benefits of technological innovation from being monopolized.
Artificial intelligence is likely to help Big Tech companies cement their industry dominance as they are the ones with the resources to develop and maintain the most powerful AI models.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 23, 2023
Unlocking AI¡¯s potential for everyone
The tech industry¡¯s dominant players are now deploying artificial-intelligence models to reinforce their positions in the market.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 28, 2023
Adam Smith, founding father of modern economics, 300 years later
The tercentenary of Adam Smith¡¯s birth is an opportunity to consider how his insights into the dynamics of economic growth will shape our understanding of a world with AI.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 3, 2023
The promise and peril of generative AI
To ensure that artificial intelligence delivers widely shared benefits, we must heed the lessons of the last wave of digital innovation.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2023
Preempting a generative AI monopoly
Policymakers must prevent this nascent artificial intelligence market from becoming dominated by a handful of giant private companies.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 15, 2022
Rethinking supply chains
Today¡¯s supply-chain policy challenges are a consequence of forgetting that other considerations besides economic efficiency matter.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 6, 2022
Is competition always good?
Policymakers must now acknowledge that healthy markets require competition among different business models, and regulatory intervention is needed to achieve this.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2021
Amid the climate change crisis, the GDP metric¡¯s days are numbered
The core idea of a new GDP metric is to create a comprehensive balance sheet to demonstrate that economic progress today is illusory when it comes at the expense of future living standards.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 17, 2021
The great global supply-chain massacre
Will these supply shocks prove merely a temporary disruption to the global economy or are we witnessing a meltdown of the world-wide production system?
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2021
Apocalypse soon? Let¡¯s hope it¡¯s not too late.
Dramatic changes such as climate change, disease outbreaks and food shortages are occurring and we must hope that it is not yet too late to address them.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 25, 2021
The dangers of data-based certainty
But before we entrust more decisions to data-based machine-learning and AI systems, we must be clear about the limitations of the data.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 3, 2020
Are the tech titans at bay?
Recent congressional antitrust hearing showed that they can no longer avoid the harsh glare of the political spotlight.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 18, 2018
Lies, damned lies, and artificial intelligence
As algorithmic decision-making spreads, it is exposing social and economic inequities that were long hidden behind ¡®official¡¯ data.
¡®My dream is broken¡¯: Japan visa rules push out foreign residents
A man orders from a kebab shop in the Okubo district in Tokyo.
Japan triples departure tax in push to combat overtourism
Tourists in Yanaka Ginza, Tokyo, on Wednesday. Japan tripled its International Tourist Tax (departure tax) to ?3,000 from ?1,000 on Wednesday for all travelers leaving Japan, regardless of nationality.
Japanese-language education is at a turning point
The country is gradually transforming Japanese-language education from a volunteer-driven system into a professional, government-supported network to better serve its growing foreign population.?
More facilities in Japan placing sanitary bins in men¡¯s restrooms
A sanitary bin with an awareness sticker placed in a men's restroom in the Nagasaki Municipal Government building
Japan plans to sharply raise fees for residence permits from October
Foreign tourists walk on the path leading to the Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in May.
Iran war exposed, but hasn¡¯t changed, Japan¡¯s reliance on imported oil
Wind turbines generate energy from strong easterly winds on the Shonai Plain in Yamagata Prefecture. Despite the oil crisis caused by conflict near the Strait of Hormuz, and concerns instability in the region could continue to impact supply and the price of imports, the administration of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi does not seem to be drawing on the war as a pretext to hasten progress toward Japan's renewable goals.
Six of the best: rikishi of note in each sumo division
Kazuma (right) faces off against future <i>yokozuna</i> Onosato during the All Japan Amateur Sumo Championships at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo in December 2020.
Some startups see opportunity in an aging Japan
Yasmin Baba, CTO of Amilis, wins the Grand Prize at the Pitch2Tokyo Grand Final on Feb. 19.
Japan¡¯s fertility system offers few safe paths for same-sex couples
A Tokyo Pride parade participant holds a sign that says "we want to be a married couple, not a couple."
Life inside Japan¡¯s largest prison for women
Western-style rooms spanning the size of four tatami mats with hardwood floors, a toilet and soft mattresses on bed frames are designated for foreign nationals and those with health conditions at Tochigi Prison.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo¡¯s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo¡¯s ¡®stadium of desire¡¯

Longform

The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival
By Alex K.T. Martin

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