Six startups picked for Yokohama's pavilion, turning rocket launches and quantum computing into games

• On 17 September 2026 Yokohama’s Economic Affairs Bureau named the six startups that will build hands-on exhibits in the city’s pavilion at GREEN×EXPO 2027, and described what each will show.
• AstroX: a game following a mission to launch a satellite by the “Rockoon” method, which lifts a rocket by balloon before firing it.
• Qubitcore: a game about how quantum computers work, and what a society built on quantum technology would feel like.
• Clean Planet: a future powered by quantum hydrogen energy, showing clean energy and nature side by side.
• SUN METALON: turning scrap metal back into a resource, as a way into what circular materials could look like.
• Phytolipid Technologies: food and energy made from microalgae, presented as a sustainable way to eat and live.
• LINK-US: joining metals with ultrasound, and how that changes manufacturing and product development.
• All six belong to TECH HUB YOKOHAMA, the city’s support base for technology startups. The city says it aims there to “create globally expanding unicorn-class startups”.
• The six met at a networking event on 27 August 2026.
• When the pavilion opens, where it sits on the site, and whether entry requires a booking are not in this announcement.

Our take

Playing a balloon-launched rocket game at a horticultural expo is not the exhibit most people picture. Yokohama’s pavilion is two buildings in the Urban GX Village, and as our guide to the pavilions explains, it is meant to show a circular future for the city. The visit runs through a prologue, behaviour change, advanced technology, exchange and an epilogue. These six firms fill in that “advanced technology” stretch.

The line-up is space, quantum, hydrogen energy, metal recycling, microalgae and metal bonding. Only the algae and the recycling connect directly to green and food; the rest reads like a trade fair for Yokohama industry. Since every firm comes from the city’s own startup base, the pavilion is also where the city puts its startup policy on display, I think.

What stands out is that all six describe their exhibits as games or hands-on experiences. Neither a satellite launch nor a quantum computer reaches a child through text on a panel. If the result is a row of indoor exhibits you can sit down and play, it also counts as somewhere to escape the heat or the rain.

The dates are the gap. When the pavilion opens, whether the exhibits rotate during the run, whether entry needs a booking: none of that is here yet.

Tips for visitors

• Opening dates and booking rules are unannounced. For what else stands on the site, see our guide to the pavilions.
• The same pavilion will also carry a Sotetsu Group exhibit on biodiesel fuel and composting food waste, shown as dioramas and capsule-toy displays (announced 3 September 2026).
• “Phytolipid Technologies” and “Clean Planet” are given here as the companies write them; the exhibit titles are trip-jp’s own English renderings of the Japanese announcement.