Takashi Hamada

Takashi Hamada is Deputy-Chief of Mission at the Mission of Japan to the European Union. He delivers the keynote titled "A View from Beyond Europe" at the inaugural Sovereign Tech Europe summit in Brussels on 23 April 2026, the only non-European diplomatic speaker at the event .

Japan's presence at a European tech sovereignty conference reflects converging strategic interests. Tokyo's Economic Security Promotion Act (2022) and the EU's Cloud and AI Development Act address parallel concerns: reducing dependency on foreign-controlled critical technology, securing supply chains for semiconductors and advanced computing, and maintaining national control over strategic data flows. Japan and the EU are aligned on semiconductor sovereignty — Japan's TSMC Kumamoto fab mirrors the EU's TSMC Dresden (ESMC) joint venture — and on the principle of trusted trade with democratic partners over unrestricted access.

Hamada's keynote slot positions Japan not as an EU framework participant but as a like-minded democratic partner whose own sovereignty legislation offers coordination opportunities. The Japan-EU Digital Partnership, signed in 2023, provides the institutional framework for this alignment. His appearance signals that European tech sovereignty is increasingly framed as part of a broader democratic bloc approach rather than a purely EU regulatory exercise.