Kyushu University here is building an international hub for the information technology industry jointly with other parts of Asia and business enterprises.
"We call 'Silicon Sea Belt Fukuoka' the sea-linked Asian route from Singapore to Kyushu via Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, and are pushing ahead with our plan," remarked Hiroto Yasuura, pointing to a map in his study at the public university.
Yasuura is an expert on large-scale integrated designing and is head of the university's System LSI Research Center.
This sea-belt region produces one-third of the world's semiconductors. Kyushu, meanwhile, with its high concentration of semiconductor-related plants in Kumamoto, Oita and other prefectures, produces one-third of the chips made in Japan, or about 6 percent of the world's total.