Japan has an earthquake problem, that’s been true throughout its history. It sits on the ring of fire. But with every single earthquake comes the risk of a complete breakdown in the global semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. That’s a relatively recent development. One with serious consequences.
Japan’s Meteorological Agency withdrew a tsunami advisory after a 6.9 magnitude earthquake occurred off the coast of southwest Japan.
The quake struck shortly after 9:19 p.m. local time (7:19 a.m. ET), the agency said, triggering an advisory for Miyazaki prefecture, in the island of Kyushu, as well as Japan’s southern Kochi prefecture.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/13/asia/tsunami-advisory-earthquake-southwestern-japan-intl/index.html
Southwest Japan is home to a number of tech companies and fabs including:
- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) in Kumamoto Prefecture
- Mazda’s Module Pack Plant in Yamaguchi Prefecture
- Sony Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation in Nagasaki Prefecture
- Renesas Electronics Corporation in Kumamoto Prefecture
- Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing
- Rohm
- SUMCO
- Yaskawa Electric Corporation
- iQPS
That is a lot at risk. And those are just the larger more notable companies. There are a great number of smaller companies that specialize in one thing or another that feed the global semiconductor / electronics ecosystem.
Japan of course experiences something like several thousand earthquakes per year. A number of them aren’t notable at all but some can be very serious and that’s the risk everyone is running. People are just betting that a big earthquake won’t take out globally important tech firms. Which is incredibly foolish.
These fabs / tech companies are strategic assets of Japan and should be babied. That may very well mean that home is Japan but fabs are in a geologically stable region like the Midwest of the United States. Fabs should not be sitting on the ring of fire. It may hurt some feelings but these companies produce some of the most important products for a modern society and earthquakes can now destroy our entire global supply chain. Without that supply chain our entire global society becomes unsustainable.
How would you like having a ration book for electronics? Only allowed one phone every three years, you break it you’re out of luck. One low grade computer every 5 years. No external hard drives and only one hard drive allowed per computer. Endless restrictions.
That could be our future.
We need these chips, we need these products, we need to maintain availability through adverse conditions. We cannot simply shutdown our society every dang time something bad happens. Bad things happen all the time regardless of the fact that people refuse to acknowledge it.
An earthquake that takes out a number of systemically important tech manufacturing facilities is very possible. Having fabs on the ring of fire is a risk we shouldn’t be taking.