News

Japan's space agency, JAXA, plans to increase the launch frequency of its H3 rockets to at least seven per year from the Tanegashima Space Center, aiming to achieve one-month intervals and enhance international competitiveness. To achieve this, JAXA is investing in infrastructure upgrades at the space center, including expanding liquid oxygen storage and assembly buildings, and introducing new instruments for faster rocket assembly.

Alimentation Couche-Tard, the Canadian convenience store giant, is facing an uphill battle in its bid to acquire Seven & i Holdings, the Japanese owner of the 7-Eleven chain. The deal, which would be the biggest foreign buyout in Japanese history, is facing antitrust scrutiny in the United States and resistance from Seven & i, which has laid out its own restructuring plan as an alternative.

Researchers at Chiba University's Research Center for Space Agriculture and Horticulture are developing innovative techniques for growing crops in space, aiming to establish a self-sufficient lunar farm by the 2040s. Their work not only paves the way for future lunar settlements but also holds potential for improving agricultural practices on Earth.

Asian markets were mixed on Wednesday, with Japan's Nikkei 225 edging up and Hong Kong's Hang Seng adding 0.2%, while the Shanghai Composite remained nearly unchanged. Wall Street's S&P 500 dropped 1.1% on Tuesday, continuing its volatile swings, as investors awaited the U.S. Federal Reserve's decision on interest rates.

Japan's most advanced public supercomputer, ABCI 3.0, has begun operation at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) Kashiwa campus. The supercomputer, which boasts the highest computing capacity of any public supercomputer in Japan, will be used to develop "multimodal generative AI" and integrate this technology with robots.