Rapidus was established in August 2022 with the support of eight major Japanese companies: Denso, Kioxia, MUFG Bank, NEC, NTT, SoftBank, Sony, and Toyota.

[3] However, the 1986 Japan-United States semiconductor agreement [ja] concluded to resolve trade friction and the rise of South Korea and Taiwan gradually reduced competitiveness.

However, management deteriorated due to the 2007-2008 global financial crisis and the subsequent strong yen induced recession, and although support was provided with government funds, it went bankrupt in 2012.

[8][9] In May 2022, United States President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met in Tokyo and discussed increased collaboration on important technologies, including semiconductors, nuclear power, space exploration, electric batteries, critical minerals, and supply chains.

[11] In addition, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's policy speech at the 210th session of the Diet [ja] on 3 October 2022 included digital transformation (DX) by encouraging public and private investment, and announced that it would promote the technological development and mass production of next-generation semiconductors through Japan-U.S. collaboration.

[29] In January 2023, representatives of Rapidus and IBM participated in a meeting between Japanese Trade Minister Hagiuda's successor, Yasutoshi Nishimura, and Secretary Raimondo.

[31][32] Rapidus also increased its partnership with imec by joining the latter's "Core Partner Program" in April 2023,[33][34] and in the same month received additional funding of 260 billion yen from the Japanese government.

[38][39] This agreement closely followed a similar deal between the United States and India which had been reached by President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June.

[53] The expansion of RDS in the U.S. is also to build upon Rapidus's already existing presence there, with it having more than 100 engineers and scientists working at the Albany NanoTech Complex facility in New York.