Who Will Be the Japan of the AI Era? - By Nicolas Colin Who Will Be the Japan of the AI Era?

Instead, we're likely to see the emergence of a modern, AI-driven twist on the keiretsu system: startups providing specialised AI capabilities while receiving not just funding but also data, domain expertise, and market access from their enterprise partners.

Just as with lean production, Scenario #2 promises better quality, lower costs, and faster delivery. But it requires specific institutional conditions to initiate and to succeed:

• First, it thrives in contexts of demographic pressure , where young workers are scarce. This describes much of Europe (particularly given increasing resistance to immigra

Scenario #2 appears more likely, as argued in Steve Yegge's The Death of the Junior Developer. The obvious risk, however, is facing a drought of experienced workers if companies stop hiring and training junior staff. This creates a crucial challenge: how to maintain the virtuous cycle of knowledge accumulation that has historically driven technolog

The second trap ( Scenario #2 ) is assuming you don't need junior workers anymore because AI can handle simple, repetitive tasks, while you retain only experienced workers who contribute critical process knowledge.

Lean production rested on two key assumptions about workers: their superior process knowledge gained through experience, and their willingness to share that knowledge given the right incentives. The system worked because workers knew both the production process and the company's information systems intimately. A social contract of lifetime employme

What ChatGPT represented wasn't a technological breakthrough but an interface revolution—making AI accessible through natural language conversation, all while operating an infrastructure able to sustain the resulting workload and to keep the user experience smooth. This mirrors how the web browser, particularly Mosaic and later Netscape, didn't inv

Japan's revolution in manufacturing emerged from two moments of crisis that forced fundamental innovation.

The first came in 1950, when Toyota faced near-bankruptcy and intense labour disputes. Unable to maintain its workforce, the company laid off a quarter of its employees, that is, about 1,600 people. The resulting conflict with Toyota's strong