iAm Hiro

Co-Founder & Co-CEO – 8M Labs

Hiro Shinohara

Fascinated by communication technology and computers from an early age, Hiro was inspired by the Silicon Valley movement. A visit to the US West Coast during his middle school years showed him first-hand how technology rewrites society, and he immersed himself in software development after returning to Japan. Building an internet service while still in high school became his entry into entrepreneurship.

Since then he has founded startups in semiconductor development and data center operations, with bases in Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and the United States. The arrival of blockchain technology led him to the potential of multi-point distributed information and communication infrastructure, and he established a research and development company to bring encryption-based data protection into practical use. In parallel he served as a technical advisor and country representative for companies in mining data centers and cloud hosting, working on the real-world implementation of the technology.

In 2022 he co-founded 8M Labs to protect information while sustaining economic development, and he serves as its Co-CEO. In 2023, in response to the rapid advance of generative AI, he established Quantum Mesh to meet the urgent need for infrastructure that safeguards information. His work now spans three areas: the development and operation of distributed edge data centers for the AI era, cybersecurity, and advanced semiconductor development. Across these areas, he works from research and development through commercialization to the founding of industry bodies.

What runs through all of it is a concern with how the information infrastructure underpinning society is protected and distributed, and with turning that concern into infrastructure that actually runs rather than into recommendations. He works toward a society without information disparity, where everyone shares equally in the benefits of a highly advanced information society.

Projects

2025–Present
Co-Founder & CEO | KAGE Inc.
Cybersecurity validation to strengthen defenses in the AIoT era.

2025–Present
Co-Founder & Representative Director | AKATSUKI
Association for advanced technology and cybersecurity.

2023–Present
Co-Founder & CEO | Quantum Mesh Inc.
Distributed internet infrastructure for the AI era.

2022–Present
Founder & CEO | Harmony Inc.
A startup studio nurturing frontier technology companies.

2022–Present
Co-Founder & Co-CEO | 8M Labs
Protecting information and sustaining economic development.

2018–Present
Investor & Advisor | Nanome Inc.
Metaverse products for the biotechnology and drug discovery fields.

2017–2018
Advisor | GMO Internet Group, Inc.
Mining data centers and mining machine development.

2016–2022
Co-Founder & CEO | Hulor Inc.
A startup studio nurturing blockchain companies; merged into Harmony Inc. by way of Hotaru Inc.

2016–2018
Japan Representative | Genesis Mining Ltd.
Operator of large-scale mining data centers.

2016–2017
Advisor | FIXER Inc.
Cloud hosting company.

2015–2025
Co-Founder & Director, CSO | SIVIRA Inc.
Research and development in distributed authentication technology.

2014–Present
Author | What is Bitcoin?
Published on the bitFlyer website.

2013–2018
Founder | BitBiteCoin
Bitcoin technical explainers and news.

2005–2012
Founder | messa TV
A podcast on technology trends.

Articles

My blog posts

Articles about me

Stages

Asian Development Bank

  • Consultation Workshop on Digital Technologies for Advancing Food Security, Climate Action and Environmental Sustainability
    • 14 March 2019, How Blockchain-enabled food traceability is changing the agricultural supply chain in Japan

Asia Blockchain Summit

SXSW

CERN

Keywords

AI AIoT Anime Apple Bitcoin Blockchain Business DID Digg Facebook Finance Foursquare Funny Gadgets Games Google Government GPU HTML5 ICO IoT iPhone Japan Japanese Kevin Rose Life Lifehacks Marketing Microsoft Miku HATSUNE Music Nicovideo Nvidia OpenAI Osaka Photos Productivity Social SoftBank Tesla Themes Twitter Videos Web WordPress