Rapidus signs up 17 design firms to find customers for its 2nm chips

On Monday, October 5, 2026, Rapidus said it is setting up the Rapidus Collaborative Open Rapid Ecosystem, or CORE for short. The company describes it as a global framework to support the development and mass production of cutting-edge chips.

The first piece is a group called Design Solution Associates. It has 17 design companies. Their job is to sit between customers and Rapidus, help with the design work, and carry a project all the way to manufacturing.

Here is the full list, in the order Rapidus published it:

• AION Silicon Limited
• Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
• Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd.
• GreatAsic Technology Sdn. Bhd.
• HCL Technologies Limited
• Infinecs Systems Sdn. Bhd.
• Infosys Limited
• MavissDesign Co., Ltd.
• MosChip Technologies Limited
• NSW Inc.
• Oppstar Technology Sdn Bhd
• Quest Global Services Pte. Ltd.
• SkyeChip Berhad
• Synopsys, Inc.
• TOPPAN Inc.
• Toshiba Information Systems (Japan) Corporation
• Wipro Limited

Jiji Press reported the partners cover companies in and outside Japan, and that Rapidus will work with them to help clients design chips, with the goal of winning manufacturing contracts.

Making a modern chip happens in two big steps. First, someone designs it. Then a factory, called a foundry, builds it.

The catch: a design has to match the factory's exact recipe. A chip drawn for one foundry's process doesn't simply drop into another one. That means a new foundry has a chicken-and-egg problem. Customers won't design for it until it's proven, and it can't prove itself without designs to build.

Think of it like a new airport. The runway can be perfect, but nobody flies there until airlines set up routes. The 17 partners are, in a sense, Rapidus's airlines.

Why it matters: many of these companies already design chips for other people for a living. Synopsys and Cadence are US companies that make chip design software. Infosys, Wipro and HCL run large engineering services businesses. If they know how to design for Rapidus, their clients have an easier path in.

In real life Imagine a startup that wants a custom AI chip for its smart cameras. It doesn't have its own chip design team. Under this setup, it could hire one of the 17 partners, which already knows Rapidus's process, and get the design built at Rapidus without starting from zero.

Rapidus was founded on August 10, 2022. Backers include Toyota, Sony and NEC, along with Japanese government funding, according to ENGtechnica.

Here are the numbers that frame it:

• State support: about $15 billion, according to Reuters.
• Company capital: 424.95 billion yen as of June 5, 2026, according to Rapidus.
• Target: 2-nanometer contract chip production in the second half of the next fiscal year, Reuters reports.
• IPO goal: around the fiscal year ending March 2032, also per Reuters.

Reuters frames the whole project in one question: who will actually fill the factory? Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is counting on Rapidus as part of her plan to revive Japan's chip industry, the agency reports.

The big picture: Japan once made about half the world's chips, in the 1980s. Today its share is under 10%, according to Reuters.

The field is small and very experienced. Reuters names three rivals:

• TSMC: the Taiwanese giant that dominates advanced chipmaking after decades of refining its process.
• Samsung Electronics: the South Korean company began making 2-nanometer chips last year.
• Intel: the US chipmaker rounds out the list.

Rapidus CEO Atsuyoshi Koike argues that AI is pushing demand high enough to need another leading-edge maker. "One or two companies are simply not enough," he said, as quoted by Reuters.

Omdia analyst Akira Minamikawa told Reuters that TSMC will keep most of the market. But some customers can't get the capacity they need from it, especially those with small orders or lower priority. Those buyers are the opening.

That's the part nobody can answer yet. Nori Chiu, chief investment officer at White Oak Capital, told Reuters the partnerships don't yet point to commercial success, but they are a step forward.

The catch: switching foundries is a big commitment. One executive told Reuters, without being named, that their company already buys from TSMC and can't move everything to Rapidus. If the new supplier didn't work out, going back would be hard.

There is also the factory itself. Rapidus has started pilot operations with IBM, and Koike says preparations for mass production are on schedule. IwaiCosmo Securities analyst Kazuyoshi Saito told Reuters that running a factory around the clock with steady yields, meaning the share of chips that come out working, is extremely hard.

A government official told Reuters the results can't be judged quickly. Meanwhile, lawmaker Daishiro Yamagiwa, who leads the ruling party's chip strategy group, said an IPO and manufacturing in the United States are possible options.

CORE isn't Rapidus's first move on the design side. In July 2026, Rapidus and Cadence announced a partnership to link Cadence's InnoStack AI Super Agent with Rapidus's own AI design platform, called Raads.

The two companies are targeting up to a 2x improvement in design turnaround time over traditional flows. Rapidus also introduced two helper tools, Raads Navigator and Raads Indicator, to help designers catch and fix problems.

AI chip design tools are a busy space right now. We covered how OpenAI built an AI that can run chip design software, with Synopsys, another of the 17 new partners.

What's next: Rapidus says CORE will grow past design. It plans to add partners for EDA (the software used to design chips), IP (ready-made building blocks of a chip) and other areas.

Minamikawa told Reuters that an advanced chipmaker in Japan could help local suppliers of materials and equipment. Customers could also spread their orders across more than one country, which makes supply chains sturdier.

The partner list leans that way too. It mixes Japanese printing and IT groups like Toppan, Dai Nippon Printing and Toshiba Information Systems with American software makers and Indian engineering firms.

• Nothing changes in your devices yet: Rapidus hasn't started mass production, so no gadget you can buy uses its chips today.
• More chip factories can mean steadier supply: a second source for top chips helps when one maker is fully booked, which Omdia says some buyers can't always get from TSMC.
• Watch for named customers: partners are the warm-up act. The real signal will be the first company that says it is building a product on Rapidus chips.