Luxembourg, Japan Explore Cooperation in AI, Cybersecurity, Data & Quantum Technology

Luxembourg's Ministry of Research and Higher Education and Ministry of Digitalisation have announced strengthened academic, scientific and digital cooperation between the Grand Duchy and Japan.

As part of an official mission to Japan, Luxembourg's Minister for Research and Higher Education and Minister for Digitalisation, Stéphanie Obertin, visited Tokyo on Monday 14, Tuesday 15 and Friday 18 July 2025. This mission was part of the deployment of national strategies on data, artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum technology, launched in May 2025 as part of the government's commitment to "Accelerating Digital Sovereignty 2030" in Luxembourg.

The reported objective of this mission was to strengthen scientific and institutional cooperation with key players in the Japanese research, higher education and innovation landscape, while promoting Luxembourg's approach based on sovereign infrastructure, robust data governance and the responsible use of emerging technologies.

On Monday 14 July, the Luxembourg delegation, composed of representatives from Luxembourg's public and research sectors, visited the RIKEN Institute, specifically the Center for Brain Science (CBS), where Minister Obertin met RIKEN President Makoto Gonokami and CBS Director Shigeo Okabe. This visit provided an opportunity to discuss existing research collaborations between CBS and the University of Luxembourg and the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) in the field of neurodegenerative diseases, and to learn more about CBS's activities in this area.

In the afternoon, a meeting at the Tokyo Institute of Science was the occasion to address shared priorities in higher education, research and technological development. The day concluded with a meeting with Atsushi Nonaka, Japanese State Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, to discuss their respective public policies in research and higher education.

In the evening, Minister Obertin attended an official dinner at the Luxembourg Embassy, which brought together leading figures from the Japanese scientific and technological world, including the President of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), researchers from Fujitsu and IBM Research and professors from renowned universities. This event provided an opportunity to discuss topics related to space, digitalisation and new technologies, as strategic priorities shared between Luxembourg and Japan.

The programme on Tuesday 15 July began with a visit to Sophia University, a long-standing partner university of Luxembourg, where discussions focused on academic cooperation and student exchange programmes. The day continued with a working meeting with the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), an opportunity to present the Luxembourg research ecosystem and national funding instruments, particularly those of the National Research Fund (FNR), with the aim of exploring avenues for collaboration. Last on the agenda was a visit to the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) which served to address key topics such as cybersecurity, quantum networks and space communication technologies, with a view to identifying synergies with research activities in these fields in Luxembourg.

After two days in Osaka (for Expo 2025), the delegation returned to Tokyo on Friday 18 July for a final scientific highlight. In the morning, Minister Obertin opened the Luxembourg-Japan Health Data Exchange Seminar at the University of Tokyo, co-organised with the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce and NTT Data Luxembourg. This seminar brought together experts from both countries to discuss the valorisation of health data, highlighting Luxembourg's initiatives such as Dataspace4Health and the Luxembourg National Data Service (LNDS), as well as Japanese advances in interoperability and AI. The shared objective, according to the ministries, was to lay the foundations for a secure, interoperable and ethical cross-border ecosystem for data exchange in the health sector.

Minister Obertin was then welcomed by President Teruo Fujii at the University of Tokyo for a courtesy visit, followed by a working meeting with experts from the university's interdisciplinary programme in information science. Discussions focused on data integration, interoperability between data spaces and the potential for cooperation between Luxembourg and Japan in this field.

On Friday afternoon, the minister visited the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (RIKEN-IMS) in Yokohama, which is a long-standing partner of the LIH and the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) at the University of Luxembourg. This visit provided an opportunity to take stock of joint projects and current research activities at RIKEN-IMS in personalised medicine, immunology and biomedical data processing, which the ministries described as priority areas in the national research and innovation strategy.

According to the ministries, these visits to Tokyo illustrate Luxembourg's desire to strengthen its scientific and technological partnerships with Japan. By increasing exchanges between Japanese and Luxembourg institutions, the mission identified strong complementarities in key areas such as data exploitation, AI, cybersecurity and quantum technologies. These advances are described as fully in line with the Luxembourg government's vision of making scientific innovation, emerging technologies and data exploitation a strategic lever for sovereignty, competitiveness and societal transformation.