Chitose, a city of approximately 100,000 people in southwestern Hokkaido, already hosts manufacturing facilities of silicon wafer maker SUMCO Corp, among others.

A Rapidus spokesperson said nothing has been decided yet on the location.

Rapidus told Reuters earlier this month that it would need about 7 trillion yen ($52 billion) of mostly taxpayer money to begin mass-producing advanced logic chips in around 2027.

($1 = 134.8100 yen)

(Reporting by Kaneko Kaori, Mayu Sakoda and Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Alex Richardson and Tomasz Janowski)