Tokyo: The Japanese government plans to strengthen the Defense Ministry’s involvement in advanced technology research as part of efforts to drastically beef up the country’s defense capabilities, it has been learned.

The government is considering including the policy in the country’s three key defense and national security documents, to be updated later this year, at a time when artificial intelligence and drones are increasingly used for military purposes.

Currently, public-private partnerships in advanced technology research are chiefly led by the industry ministry.

“We want to create a system that is truly useful for the defense (of Japan) by deepening (the Defense Ministry’s) cooperation with other government agencies and ministries, including through a system to allow Defense Ministry researchers to join each research project,” Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said at a meeting of a relevant government panel of experts in October.

Some government officials have proposed that bases bringing together researchers from the private-sector and the Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency be established outside universities for the protection of defense secrets and information management, in order to strengthen industry-government-academia cooperation for defense technology research and development.

Another idea calls for creating a Japanese version of the U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is supporting research on cutting-edge technologies with a view to using them for military purposes in the future.

So-called dual-use technologies, which can be used for both civilian and military purposes, include those related to robots, rockets and cyberspace.

The use of drones and internet technology has attracted attention in the conflict in Ukraine, which has been invaded by Russia.

Many countries are working on developing advanced technologies under government initiatives. Of them, China has been promoting a military-civilian fusion strategy.

Under the circumstances, a participant at the October panel meeting proposed that the defense minister become an official member of the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation, a key panel at the Cabinet Office.

Another participant said that only some 160 billion yen of the government’s annual science and technology budget, totaling about 4 trillion yen, has be allotted for programs related to the Defense Ministry.

JIJI Press