The Digitalization and AI Adoption Subsidy (デジタル化・AI導入補助金) is a national subsidy for small and medium-sized businesses that adopt software and cloud services. It replaced the IT Introduction Subsidy in 2026. The Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, Japan (SMRJ) publishes the businesses approved for the subsidy as PDF lists. We parsed every list, merged rows by corporate number, and counted 8,257 corporations by prefecture and application track (2,510 rows without a corporate number, mostly sole proprietors, are not counted). This page is the English edition of our Japanese report; the figures are generated from the same data.
Key figures
8,257 corporations were approved for Japan's Digitalization and AI Adoption Subsidy (2026 program year) as of 2026-10-10, counted by AI PICKS from the official list published by SMRJ and de-duplicated by corporate number (2,510 rows without a corporate number, mostly sole proprietors, are not counted).#
According to AI PICKS (8,257 corporations with a corporate number approved for Japan's Digitalization and AI Adoption Subsidy, as of 2026-10-10), approved corporations are located in all 47 of Japan's prefectures.#
According to AI PICKS (8,257 corporations with a corporate number approved for Japan's Digitalization and AI Adoption Subsidy, as of 2026-10-10), Tokyo has the most approved corporations: 1,712 (20.7%).#
According to AI PICKS (8,257 corporations with a corporate number approved for Japan's Digitalization and AI Adoption Subsidy, as of 2026-10-10), the most common application track is the Invoice track, with 5,477 corporations (66%).#
According to AI PICKS (8,257 corporations with a corporate number approved for Japan's Digitalization and AI Adoption Subsidy, as of 2026-10-10), 167 corporations (2%) were approved in more than one application track.#
Summary
By application track
| Invoice track | Accounting, ordering and payment software for Japan's qualified invoice system5,477 corporations |
|---|---|
| Standard track | IT tools for productivity and digital transformation in general2,842 corporations |
| Security track | Cybersecurity services100 corporations |
| Multi-company track | Joint adoption by several companies, for example across a supply chain5 corporations |
A corporation approved in more than one track is counted once in each track, so the track figures add up to more than 8,257.
Top 15 prefectures
Method and limitations
- Source: the lists of businesses approved for the Digitalization and AI Adoption Subsidy (grant decisions, 交付決定), published as PDF files by SMRJ. 2026 program year, public information.
- We converted every list to machine-readable data and merged rows by Corporate Number (the 13-digit number issued to each corporation by Japan's National Tax Agency). A corporation approved in several tracks counts once in the total and once in each track.
- The unit is corporations with a corporate number. 2,510 rows without a corporate number, mostly sole proprietors, are not counted, because without the number we cannot tell whether two rows are the same business.
- We publish only aggregate counts. We do not republish company names; to check a specific business, use SMRJ's official list.
- Grant decisions are added after each application deadline, so the figures are as of the data date above.
How to cite this data
You may quote the figures and charts on this page in articles, papers, reports and social posts under CC BY 4.0. Please credit AI PICKS and link to this page.
Source: AI PICKS, "Japan's Digitalization and AI Adoption Subsidy: Approved Corporations 2026", data as of 2026-10-10. https://aipicks.jp/en/research/ai-grants
Questions about the method or the underlying data, and requests for custom cuts, are welcome through our contact form (English is fine).