Japan and the United States have signed a memorandum of cooperation in education on the sidelines of the G7 summit. They also launched multimillion-dollar educational partnerships in advanced technologies.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Japan's education, science and technology minister Nagaoka Keiko exchanged the memorandum in Hiroshima on Sunday. It calls for the two governments to hold high-level dialogues on education every year.
Blinken said that although it may be hard to tell today what the agreement will produce, he could say "with great confidence that it's going to stand both of our countries and actually the world in very good stead."
Nagaoka said her ministry will work closely with the US side to strengthen bilateral educational exchanges.
After the signing, three US tech giants announced a plan to invest more than 210 million dollars in partnership programs with 13 leading Japanese and US universities.
IBM and Google are each teaming up with the University of Tokyo and the University of Chicago for research and development in quantum computing. IBM is committing 100 million dollars and Google 50 million dollars over the next 10 years.
Micron pledged 60 million dollars over five years for R&D in semiconductors with 11 universities from the US and Japan.
Japan and the US are apparently aiming to strengthen cooperation in economic security through their educational partnerships in the high-tech sector.