More people are using generative artificial intelligence to make travel plans for their summer vacation and letting their children use the technology when doing their homework during summer holidays. Six out of 10 people who responded to a survey on this year's summer holidays said they are using generative artificial intelligence to make travel plans. The survey, conducted by Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance on 1,120 people in their 20s to 50s in June, showed that 61.2% of those planning to travel in Japan or abroad refer to generative AI to make travel itineraries, as well as obtain information on local food and transportation. "The main tool people use for planning trips and doing research when they get there is shifting from travel guidebooks to generative AI," the firm said. Asked how they plan to spend their summer holidays, 58.4% said they are going out, down by 6.3 percentage points from last year. The rate of those traveling in Japan was 57.6%, up by 1 percentage point, while the ratio of those traveling overseas halved from 13.5% last year to 6.4%.

Japan's internal affairs industry may introduce artificial intelligence agents at local governments facing labor shortages. Japan's internal affairs ministry has begun considering the introduction of artificial intelligence agents to autonomously perform tasks at local governments facing labor shortages. On Thursday, the ministry held the first meeting of a related study group consisting of relevant experts and local government officials to discuss which tasks could be assigned to AI agents and how local government employees could manage them. The group will compile an interim report by the end of fiscal 2026 and aim to release its final report around summer 2027. According to the ministry, 74% of the country's local governments were using AI in some form as of October 2025. While AI tools to classify data and make predictions and those to generate text and images based on prompts were commonly used, AI agents were rarely used, except in trials at some organizations.

An 18-year-old man has been arrested for his suspected involvement in a cyberattack on an internet cafe operator. An 18-year-old man has been arrested for his suspected involvement in a cyberattack on the operator of the Kaikatsu Club internet cafe chain, according to investigative sources. On Wednesday, the Metropolitan Police Department's cybercrime countermeasure division arrested the company employee from Tokyo's Katsushika Ward, who was in the second year of high school at the time of the incident, on suspicion of fraudulent obstruction of business and violation of the law against unauthorized computer access. He has denied parts of the allegations, the sources said. In the cyberattack on the internet cafe chain operator Kaikatsu Frontier, a computer program that a high school boy from the city of Osaka developed using ChatGPT was used.

Japan's Terra Drone plans to set up a system enabling domestic production of up to tens of thousands of interceptor drones a year, the company's head, Toru Tokushige, said in a recent interview. As well as domestic development for such defense drones, the Tokyo-based company aims to speed up work to establish supply chains that do not rely on imports by promoting the development and production of drone components at home. In March, Terra Drone announced its full-scale entry into the defense drone market, in addition to civilian-use drones. As part of the move, the company has acquired two Ukrainian firms that develop interceptor drones. In Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the Middle East conflict, cheap drones are said to have changed the concept of war by shooting down expensive missiles and attacking important enemy bases.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi meets her Singaporean counterpart Lawrence Wong at a bilateral meeting in Tokyo in March. Singapore - Japan and Singapore have signed a memorandum on cooperation to promote the peaceful use of space. The move came after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and her Singaporean counterpart, Lawrence Wong, agreed at a meeting in Tokyo in March to upgrade the two countries' relations to a strategic partnership, and identified the space sector as a pillar of the partnership. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the National Space Agency of Singapore signed the memorandum Monday on the sidelines of the Spacetide 2026 international space business conference in Tokyo. The pact is the first bilateral agreement for NSAS.

Sudanese women gather for a hot meal in al-Rahmaniyah camp for displaced people, near the city of El-Obeid in the southern Kordofan region of Sudan on Tuesday. Geneva - Misinformation and hate speech are inciting harm to refugees, with artificial intelligence exacerbating the spread, the United Nations warned Tuesday, as it urged tech giants to help turn the tide. However, if handled the right way, AI could be put to good use in managing humanitarian crises, said UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency. UNHCR is taking part in the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, putting across its point that the world's major displacement crises are often twinned with "information crises". The summit is an attempt by the wider U.N. to focus on using AI's potential to serve humanity by solving global challenges, and to look at the state of AI standards.

KDDI and KDDI SmartDrone will study the potential use of AI drones for disaster prevention and for patrolling and inspecting infrastructure facilities. KDDI said last Friday that it will launch a feasibility study to explore the deployment of digital solutions using artificial intelligence-powered drones in Vietnam and the Philippines. The project will receive subsidies under a Japanese industry ministry program aimed at supporting domestic companies aiming to start infrastructure and other operations in emerging economies. KDDI and KDDI SmartDrone, a joint venture between the Japanese telecommunications firm and Japan Airlines, will study the potential use of AI drones for disaster prevention and for patrolling and inspecting infrastructure facilities in the two Southeast Asian countries. The companies will assess technical requirements, including market conditions, civil aviation regulations and communication environments.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara (third from left) speaks at a meeting of the digital administrative and fiscal reform council, held at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo on Tuesday. The government decided Tuesday to establish a new council to drastically overhaul legal frameworks governing the development and use of artificial intelligence. The plan was included in the government's 2026 basic policy guidelines adopted at a meeting of the digital administrative and fiscal reform council, held at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo. This council, launched under the administration of former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, will be reorganized into the new body. The guidelines stressed the urgency of advancing what is described as AI transformation, or a fundamental review of work using AI, to cope with population decline.

Reliant on Nvidia hardware for AI training and inferencing since its outset, Turing now handles roughly 10% of its AI training needs with Advanced Micro Devices graphics processing units. Self-driving tech developer Turing has added AMD Ventures to its list of backers and begun adopting Advanced Micro Devices' AI accelerators in its systems. The five-year-old Japanese startup is adding to its capabilities as it builds toward a commercial launch. Reliant on Nvidia hardware for AI training and inferencing since its outset, Turing now handles roughly 10% of its AI training needs with AMD graphics processing units, company executives said in an interview. AMD, headquartered a stone's throw away from Nvidia in Santa Clara, California, presented a good chance to diversify supply and achieve lower costs, the executives said. "We've made notable progress with the technology.

Micron Technology on Saturday broke ground on the expansion of its factory in western Japan, a ¥1.5 trillion ($9.3 billion) undertaking to produce advanced memory chips. The Boise, Idaho-based company is building the facility in Hiroshima to make chips such as high-bandwidth memory crucial for AI processors like Nvidia's, with shipments to start around the summer of 2028. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has allocated up to ¥500 billion to help cover the cost. The move is part of a global rampup by the U.S. company to meet demand for AI. Micron is building two leading-edge fabs in Boise and in January held a groundbreaking ceremony for a $100 billion production site outside Syracuse, New York, part of a pledge to increase DRAM production on American soil. "Micron's very first HBM production wafer -- for the memory technology at the heart of AI -- was made right here in Hiroshima," Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said during a ceremony attended by central and local government officials.