Japan
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"Half a Year Is Enough to Build a National Strategy" — Masaaki Taira on the Policy Calendar
- Taira chairs (as deputy chair) the LDP's "Next-Generation AI/On-Chain Finance Initiative" project team, launched in 2026 under the party's Digital Society Promotion Headquarters, with Seiji Kihara as chair and Hideki Murai as secretary-general; its proposal was approved by the party's Policy Research Council on May 19 and calls on the Bank of Japan to sort out issues and present a roadmap by year-end for tokenizing BOJ current account deposits to support tokenized deposits.
- AI policy focus shifted from early concerns (GPU access, English-language bias in AI, lack of a central coordinating body) to recognizing a new phase of autonomous, self-rewriting "agentic AI" — reflected in Taira's annual AI white paper being renamed "2.0" starting with the 2026 edition instead of using a calendar year.
- Because AI agents cannot hold bank accounts, stablecoins/cryptocurrencies are seen as the natural settlement rail for agent-to-agent "agentic commerce," a convergence Taira says became clear to him at the January 2025 Davos meeting; he also noted that, as a civil-law jurisdiction, Japan must coordinate multiple ministries around a clear vision and keywords (e.g., CBDC) before assigning concrete tasks to each agency.