The YAMATO Mindset: Japan's Culture of Technology
In 1941, Japan commissioned Yamato, a battleship that would become one of the most ambitious achievements in the history of maritime engineering. Its sheer size, heavy armour and massive main guns made it an extraordinary product of its time. Yet the most interesting aspect of Yamato was never its weaponry. It was the technological capacity of the society that managed to build it.
A ship of that scale required far more than a large shipyard. Japan needed advanced metallurgy, hydrodynamics, high-output propulsion, precision optics, communications systems, heavy manufacturing, naval architecture, industrial coordination and thousands of highly specialised engineers. Yamato, in that sense, was not simply a military platform. It was the result of a technological culture capable of turning knowledge, industrial discipline and engineering ambition into something tangible.
Four years later, that world collapsed. Yamato was sunk in April 1945, Japan lost the war, its cities were devastated and much of its industrial capacity was severely damaged. Its military ambitions came to an end, but the intellectual and technological foundations that had supported them did not disappear. The ability to design, experiment, refine and solve complex engineering problems remained part of Japanese industrial culture.
The Biggest Then, The Best Now
Less than two decades after the war, Japan introduced the Shinkansen. It was followed by the global rise of companies such as Toyota, Honda, Sony, Canon, Nikon, Panasonic and Komatsu. Japan, once recognised primarily through its military power, gradually built a new international reputation based on technology, industrial reliability and engineering precision.
The transformation was not a simple change from military production to civilian manufacturing. It reflected a deeper evolution in the way technological capability was applied. The knowledge required to build complex military platforms was increasingly absorbed into laboratories, universities, research centres and civilian factories. The battlefield disappeared, but the engineering culture survived.
There was also an important lesson hidden in the fate of Yamato. From an engineering perspective, the ship was an extraordinary achievement. Strategically, however, naval warfare was already changing. Air power, aircraft carriers, radar, submarines and eventually missile technology altered the nature of maritime combat. The ability to build the largest platform no longer guaranteed strategic relevance.
Post-war Japanese industry appears to have internalised this lesson in a different form. Technological competition was no longer about building something larger simply because it could be built. Efficiency, reliability, miniaturisation, durability and precision became increasingly important. Products were designed to consume less energy, last longer and perform more consistently. Continuous improvement eventually became one of the characteristics most closely associated with Japanese manufacturing.
Behind that industrial reputation stood something less visible but far more important: sustained investment in research.
A Toyota does not begin when a vehicle reaches the assembly line. A Shinkansen does not begin when a train leaves the station. An industrial robot does not begin when its mechanical arm first moves. Each is preceded by years of materials research, experimentation, testing, redesign and component development, often carried out long before the commercial value of the research becomes obvious.
That is where technological power is actually created.
Research IS Infrastructure
In fiscal year 2024, Japan spent approximately ¥23.79 trillion on research and development, the highest level in its history. That figure was equivalent to around 3.7 percent of Japan’s GDP. Japanese companies contributed approximately ¥17.43 trillion, meaning that more than seven out of every ten yen spent on R&D came from the business sector. The transport equipment industry alone invested around ¥5.10 trillion in research and development.
Those figures reveal something fundamental about the Japanese economy. Research is not treated as an activity separate from production. It is integrated into the economic system itself. Laboratories, factories, universities and companies operate within an ecosystem in which technological knowledge can move from basic research to industrial application.
Industry needs universities, universities interact with businesses, engineers confront real production problems, and researchers explore scientific possibilities that may not yet have an immediate market. This relationship is important because research cannot be judged solely by how quickly it produces a commercial product.
Basic science requires patience. It also requires the freedom to fail.
One of Japan’s most important technological achievements illustrates this point. During the 1970s and 1980s, research into gallium nitride, or GaN, appeared to be a highly specialised field of materials science with limited commercial relevance. Researchers struggled to produce stable semiconductor crystals from a material considered extremely difficult to work with.
The long-term work of Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura eventually led to the development of efficient blue light-emitting diodes in the 1990s. Their research later enabled white LED lighting, modern displays, Blu-ray technology and a range of advanced semiconductor applications.
The importance of this case lies not only in the final product. For nearly two decades, the research did not offer an obvious commercial return. Yet once the technology matured, it created new industrial capabilities, manufacturing processes, intellectual property and markets. Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has estimated that the development of blue LEDs generated a new market worth approximately ¥350 billion and around 32,000 jobs.
Carbon fibre provides another example. Research into polymers and composite materials initially appeared remote from major strategic questions. Once the technology matured, however, lightweight and high-strength materials became essential for aircraft, satellites, electric vehicles, wind turbines and defence platforms.
These examples demonstrate why research policy cannot be evaluated only through annual expenditure or the number of published papers. A strong technological ecosystem needs mechanisms capable of moving knowledge from laboratories into prototypes, and eventually from prototypes into industrial production.
Failures also have value within such a system. Not every experiment leads to a product, and not every research programme produces an immediate economic return. Yet scientific knowledge accumulates. An unsuccessful experiment can become part of the knowledge base that enables another breakthrough years later.
Indonesia’s Long Journey Ahead
Indonesia is not a country without research. BRIN recorded total national research expenditure of approximately Rp50.27 trillion in 2024, equivalent to around 0.23 percent of GDP. Roughly 71 percent of that expenditure came from the higher education sector, while businesses and industry contributed less than 15 percent.
The contrast with Japan is significant. Japan spends around 3.7 percent of GDP on research and development, while Indonesia spends approximately 0.23 percent. The difference, however, is not only in the amount of money being spent. The structure of the research ecosystem is equally important.
Higher education remains the dominant research actor in Indonesia. In Japan, industry plays the largest role.
This distinction matters because technological capability is difficult to build when laboratories and factories operate separately. If companies continue to find imported technology cheaper than developing their own, industrial demand for domestic research will remain limited. If universities conduct research without sufficient connection to the technological problems faced by industry, much of that knowledge risks ending its journey in academic documents rather than industrial applications.
Increasing research spending is therefore important, but the size of the budget is only one part of the equation. A more useful measure is the capability created by that spending.
The critical question is not merely how much money a country allocates to research, but what that country becomes capable of doing after the investment has been made.
Japan’s experience with gallium nitride demonstrates the difference. The value of the research was not simply the amount of money invested in laboratories. Its value ultimately appeared in semiconductor expertise, manufacturing capability, patents, production processes, industrial supply chains and new markets.
Technology became an asset because scientific knowledge was converted into capability.
Indonesia can learn from this model.
Rp12 Trillion Is a Good Start
A notable shift occurred in Indonesia in 2026 when the government increased research funding from approximately Rp8 trillion by an additional Rp4 trillion, bringing the allocation to around Rp12 trillion. Part of that increase was directed towards strengthening university research and BRIN.
The increase is significant, but Japan’s experience suggests that the effectiveness of research policy depends on how different institutions are connected.
Universities should have the freedom to explore knowledge and develop fundamental science. BRIN can provide strategic research capacity and infrastructure that would be too costly for individual companies to build independently. Industry can provide real technological problems, production experience and market demand. Investors can provide capital to bridge the difficult stage between a promising prototype and commercial production. Government, meanwhile, can identify sectors where long-term dependence on foreign technology creates strategic vulnerability.
Scientific publications, patents and the number of researchers remain important measures. They should not, however, become the final objective. Technological progress becomes more visible when a country gradually acquires the ability to produce what it previously had to import.
That may include sensors, advanced materials, industrial machinery, medicines, semiconductor components, propulsion systems, radar, battery technology, marine robotics or ships.
Research expenditure should therefore do more than expand knowledge. Over time, it should expand the range of things a nation is capable of designing, producing and improving on its own.
For 2027, Indonesia’s research funding structure is still developing as the national budget continues through the legislative process. Different figures should therefore be treated carefully. National research expenditure, the BRIN budget, university research funding and the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology’s research programmes represent different components of the research ecosystem.
The ministry’s 2025–2029 strategic plan, for example, indicates a funding requirement of approximately Rp3.61 trillion for its Research and Science Innovation Programme in 2027, compared with approximately Rp1.63 trillion indicated for 2026. This figure represents one programme and should not be confused with Indonesia’s total national research expenditure.
As of early September 2026, the ministry’s 2027 budget was also still under discussion with Commission X of the House of Representatives.
The more important issue is therefore not simply whether research spending rises again in 2027, but whether additional resources are accompanied by a clearer technological strategy.
Indonesia needs to identify the capabilities it wants to master over the next five, ten and twenty years. Applied research can then be aligned with those priorities while fundamental science continues to receive the freedom and patience required for long-term discovery.
A technological nation does not choose between basic research and applied research. It needs both.
The Advantage of Scarcity
Japan presents an interesting paradox for resource-rich countries.
It does not possess the scale of natural resources available to Indonesia. That limitation forced Japan to create value through other means: knowledge, technology, productivity, efficiency and precision.
Indonesia begins from a very different position.
It possesses nickel, copper and tin. Its forests and seas contain enormous biological resources. It has significant geothermal potential. Its waters sit between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, giving the country one of the most strategically important maritime geographies in the world.
Indonesia therefore does not suffer from a shortage of resources to develop. Its greater challenge is determining how much value can be created after those resources are extracted.
Selling minerals creates revenue. Understanding materials creates capability. Manufacturing batteries creates industry. Developing the next generation of technology creates a form of economic power that is more difficult to replace.
Japan became technologically rich despite being relatively resource-poor.
Indonesia faces a different question: whether a country that is rich in natural resources can also become rich in technology. The answer will not come from the mine alone. It will also come from the laboratory.
From Technology Transfer to Co-Creation
Japan’s relationship with Indonesia offers an important opportunity in this context.
Academic and educational cooperation between the two countries has developed over decades, but recent initiatives increasingly point towards stronger links between universities, research institutions and industry.
In February 2026, Indonesia’s Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology and JICA discussed deeper cooperation in higher education, research infrastructure and industry–academia collaboration, including greater involvement from Japanese companies. JICA has also been developing a program involving five Indonesian universities aimed at strengthening science and technology capabilities.
JST and BRIN also reopened the NEXUS framework for joint Japan–Indonesia research in 2026. One of its latest programs focuses on bioenergy and combines collaborative research with the development of young Indonesian researchers pursuing doctoral studies while participating directly in joint projects.
In a field closely connected to Indonesia’s maritime character, Japan’s SATREPS program selected a joint project in 2026 focusing on mangrove management and blue carbon, with BRIN as the Indonesian research partner.
These programs suggest a broader direction for Indonesia–Japan scientific cooperation.
The relationship does not need to remain limited to a traditional model in which one side owns the technology and the other side acquires it. A more ambitious model is possible, one based on joint research and co-creation.
Rather than simply purchasing Japanese ships, Indonesia can participate in researching the materials, propulsion systems or sensors used in future maritime platforms. Rather than relying only on sending students abroad, joint laboratories can bring together Indonesian students, Japanese professors, industrial engineers and companies from both countries around specific technological problems.
Technology transfer remains useful, but co-creation creates a different type of value. Technology transfer gives access to knowledge that already exists. Co-creation creates the possibility of discovering something new together.
Building a Maritime Laboratory
This approach is particularly relevant to Indonesia’s maritime future.
Indonesia is an archipelagic nation of more than 17,000 islands, with the sea forming a large part of its strategic and economic space. That geography creates an enormous range of technological challenges.
How can such vast waters be monitored effectively? How can underwater activity be detected? How can ships become more efficient? How can the seabed be mapped more accurately? How can autonomous underwater vehicles be developed? How can ocean energy be utilised? How can aquaculture expand without damaging marine ecosystems? How can blue carbon be measured more accurately? How can coastal areas become more resilient to tsunamis and sea-level rise? How can ports become smarter? How can propulsion systems eventually be designed and manufactured domestically?
These problems share one characteristic: imports cannot provide the answer forever.
Indonesia will eventually need to participate directly in the experimentation, design and development of the technologies required to manage its own maritime environment.
Japan is a particularly relevant partner because it understands the sea not merely as a commercial space but as an existential reality. Japan and Indonesia are both archipelagic nations. Both live with earthquakes. Both depend heavily on maritime transport. Both understand that the sea can create prosperity and vulnerability at the same time.
Their industrial histories, however, have produced very different technological capabilities.
Japan developed advanced maritime and industrial technologies earlier. Indonesia now has an opportunity to use the scale of its geography as a research environment in its own right.
The Indonesian Sea could become one of the world’s largest maritime laboratories.
In such a model, Japanese technology would not need to arrive only as a finished product. It could become the starting point for new research conducted jointly with Indonesian institutions and industry.
The Yamato Mindset
Indonesia does not need another Yamato. The technological environment has changed, the nature of warfare has changed and the forms of national power have changed.
What remains relevant almost nine decades later is the mindset of the society that built it.
Japan demonstrated a willingness to confront difficult engineering problems, invest in knowledge and continue refining technology over long periods of time. Its defeat in 1945 did not erase those habits. The same technological culture later appeared in different forms: from battleships to bullet trains, from military manufacturing to automobiles, from optical systems to precision industries, and from naval engineering to advanced maritime technology.
That is the essence of the Yamato Mindset.
It is not nostalgia for a battleship and it should not be read as romanticism about Japan’s wartime past. It is a way of understanding how technological capability is built through persistence, scientific investment and industrial discipline.
For Indonesia, that lesson is particularly relevant.
Indonesia has a large domestic market, abundant natural resources, a young population and an archipelagic geography that presents thousands of technological problems waiting to be solved. The government has begun to increase research funding. Universities provide a large academic base. BRIN has research infrastructure. Industry continues to expand, while Japan and other international partners offer opportunities for scientific collaboration.
The ingredients already exist. The real challenge is connecting them.
Japan’s technological history offers a simple lesson that extends well beyond Japan itself: a country does not become technologically advanced simply because it can afford to purchase the best technology available. A deeper transformation begins when research institutions, industry, government and society develop the confidence and capability to create technology themselves.
That may ultimately be the most relevant legacy of the Yamato Mindset.
Not the ship itself, but the belief that even an extraordinarily complex technological challenge can be studied, designed, tested, allowed to fail, improved and eventually built.