Japan offers $1 billion research grant for human augmentation, cyborg tech

The Japanese government is offering researchers up to $1 billion to develop ambitious human augmentation and cyborg technologies.

An unnamed government source told the publication that 100 billion yen ($921 million) has been set aside to fund these projects for the first five years of a decade-long support agreement.

Japan is facing a looming issue: fewer citizens are having children and growth has reduced to -0.27 percent. This may herald a future labor shortage, and so technology which can keep individuals in work longer or replace human staff altogether may buffer the declining birth rate and keep industry going.

Nikkei says, for example, that the research grant will go toward "a cyborg technology that can replace human bodily functions using robotics or living organisms by 2050."

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