Chief of supercomputer developer nabbed for subsidy fraud

December 5, 2017

Tokyo- Public prosecutors arrested the president and a former executive of a Tokyo-based supercomputer developer on Tuesday for allegedly defrauding an industry ministry-affiliated body of subsidies totaling about 431 million yen.

On the same day, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office's special investigation squad searched places including the headquarters in Chiyoda Ward of the company, Pezy Computing, launched in 2010.

The company chief, Motoaki Saito, 49, and the former executive, Daisuke Suzuki, 47, are suspected of fraudulently receiving the subsidies by submitting a project report with overstated costs to the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, or NEDO, in February 2014. The prosecutors did not reveal whether the two have admitted to the allegations.

Only in October this year, the company came under the spotlight by announcing the development of a supercomputer with the world's top-class energy efficiency.

The company received subsidies from NEDO on five projects between 2010 and 2017, according to the industry ministry.

A NEDO official declined to comment, noting that the prosecutors' investigations are under way.

Saito, a native of Niigata Prefecture, central Japan, completed the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Medicine after graduating from Niigata University's faculty of Medicine. Saito has set up several startups. Jiji Press