TOKYO, April 17 (Reuters) - The Japanese government will provide subsidies of up to 60 billion yen ($380 million) to Sony for an image sensor plant in the western Japanese prefecture of Kumamoto, industry minister Ryosei Akazawa said on Friday.
Image sensors will be "indispensable for autonomous driving and physical AI" and "we hope a stable supply of image sensors... will be secured," Akazawa said at a press conference.
Sony is a leading manufacturer of image sensors used in smartphones in addition to its strengths in entertainment, spanning games, movies, music and anime.
($1 = 159.2200 yen)
(Reporting by Ritsuko Shimizu and Sam Nussey; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
