The Nikkan Kogyo daily reported on Friday that Sony Group Corp is exploring an expenditure of approximately 800 billion yen ($5.83 billion) to develop a factory in western Japan to manufacture smartphone image sensors.

According to the report, the plant would be located in Kumamoto prefecture, and Sony hopes to have it operational by 2025.

The story was first reported by the Nikkei business newspaper, albeit no exact investment amount was mentioned. Given fears about a worldwide economic slowdown, the Nikkei said that the Japanese electronics and entertainment behemoth would carefully assess the timing and scale of the investment.

Following the disruption of global supply chains caused by the COVID-19 epidemic, major economies, like the United States and Japan, have pushed to increase domestic chip manufacture.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) is constructing a large chip factory in Kumamoto. Sony and Denso Corp, both vehicle components manufacturers, are each taking a minority investment in the $8.6 billion project. According to the Nikkei, Sony intends to source logic chips for image sensors from the TSMC plant.

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