[Interview] Security Threats in the Age of AI and New Possibilities for Open-Source Operating Systems

As the digital society advances rapidly, AlmaLinux Magazine brought together Hagiwara Kenta (萩原健太), vice chair of SAJ and chair of its Security Committee, and Ikeda Munehiro (池田宗広) of Cybertrust for a special discussion on the cybersecurity threats surrounding Japan's business infrastructure and the role of open-source OS platforms.

Hagiwara Kenta (萩原健太) explained the definition of Japan-ness and the importance of autonomous governance in Japan. NCPC was established in December 2025, and a representative was appointed to strengthen promotion and collaboration within Japan. Japan-ness was proposed as an indicator for quantifying and increasing transparency around the degree to which governance operates domestically, with the aim of improving domestic production and autonomy.

As the widening digital trade deficit has become a social issue, the discussion highlighted the outflow of Japanese digital spending overseas driven by the spread of generative AI and the expanding use of overseas cloud services. It was argued that greater use of domestic OS and security infrastructure would strengthen the autonomy of infrastructure operations in Japan.

AlmaLinux's strengths were described as governance by a nonprofit organization independent of the interests of any particular company and ABI compatibility. Its design philosophy of rapidly incorporating fixes was also praised. Cybertrust's ability to provide Japanese-language support and long-term support in Japan's local time zone was said to contribute to the development of sustainable infrastructure.

Going forward, priority is expected to be given to developing engineers who understand the underlying OS and kernel, as well as the low-level layers of hardware. Developing personnel capable of supporting Japan's infrastructure through school education and the training of younger workers is also expected to be important.