Ajinomoto Co., Inc.

JA Tsumagoi Village, JAXA, and Dentsu began an experimental initiative on the 24th to use satellite data to forecast supply and prices of Tsumagoi Village's specialty cabbage, linking this to in-store promotions and advertising. When they determine it is a good time to sell due to increased supply, they will create demand through merchandising, and when supply is short, they will curb advertising, aiming to stabilize supply, demand, and prices while reducing food loss. Previously, producers walked the fields to check growth, but now satellite data on color, size, and other broad-area indicators will predict shipment volumes eight weeks ahead. Ajinomoto is also cooperating, and from the same day, Cook Do products are displayed next to Tsumagoi Village cabbage at Tokyu Store Sangenjaya. Going forward, they will propose cabbage-based menu ideas according to supply forecasts and roll out similar promotions at about 50 stores in sequence.

Ajinomoto Co Inc achieved record first-quarter sales, business profit, and profit attributable to owners, with business profit surging 127% year-over-year, and raised its full-year forecast. The functional materials segment, particularly ABF for AI servers and networks, saw robust demand and significant sales and profit increases, driving the upward revision. The company is taking proactive measures to absorb an estimated JPY25 billion cost impact from Middle East tensions through price adjustments and cost reduction initiatives. The CDMO business also posted increased sales and profit, led by small molecules and gene therapy, with a confident outlook for significant full-year profit growth. However, the frozen food segment experienced a JPY600 million profit decrease due to higher costs and a delayed recovery from product recalls in North America.

Ajinomoto on the 6th revised upward its consolidated net profit forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2027, from the previous 120 billion yen to 123.5 billion yen, a decline of 8.29 percent from the prior year. The move reflects robust sales of electronic materials for high-performance substrates used in artificial intelligence, servers, and network equipment. The forecast fell short of the average estimate of 134.5 billion yen from 15 analysts polled by IBES. For the April-to-June quarter, the first quarter of the current fiscal year, consolidated net profit rose 13.1 percent year-on-year to 36.4 billion yen, a record high for the quarter. In addition to strong sales of electronic materials, seasonings and foods were firm within the overall food business, while the recovery in frozen foods was delayed by the impact of a voluntary recall.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang met with executives from several Japanese suppliers at a Tokyo izakaya, signaling the company's deepening reliance on Japan's industrial base for its AI expansion. The gathering included Kioxia Holdings, Shin-Etsu Chemical, Tokyo Electron, Ajinomoto, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Taiyo Yuden, Panasonic Holdings, and Nitto Boseki, spanning flash memory, silicon wafers, manufacturing equipment, chip-packaging film, fiber-optic cables, capacitors, and ultra-thin glass cloth. Huang stated that Japan provides foundational technologies for semiconductor manufacturing, and Tokyo Electron's CEO noted NVIDIA has substantial expectations for the Japanese supply chain. The meeting underscores the critical role of these specialized suppliers as NVIDIA, valued at more than $5.1 trillion, scales its AI infrastructure.

In the semiconductor value chain, Japanese companies hold overwhelming global shares in materials, back-end processes, and electronic components. But former institutional investor Ryosuke Izumida points out that for equity investment, it is essential to analyze the degree of specialization and contribution—assessing how much a company’s semiconductor-related business contributes to its overall performance. Shin-Etsu Chemical leads the world in silicon wafers, with SUMCO in second place. Tokyo Ohka Kogyo is number one in photoresists. Ajinomoto Build-up Film holds about 95 percent of the global market for insulation film. Murata Manufacturing commands roughly 70 percent of MLCCs for AI servers. Japanese firms boast high technical capabilities. However, at highly diversified companies like Mitsui Chemicals and Mitsubishi Electric, expanding semiconductor demand may have only a limited impact on overall earnings and stock prices. In contrast, highly specialized firms such as SUMCO and Tokyo Ohka Kogyo tend to reflect the industry’s strength more directly. Izumida stresses the importance of bottom-up research—digging into earnings reports and briefing materials to gauge the contribution of semiconductor and AI-related businesses.

Ajinomoto's electronic materials business generated roughly 30% of total company operating profit, according to results for the fiscal year ended March 2026. The company's ABF insulation film for semiconductor packaging, which boasts a 100% global share, is a technology derived from amino acid research, and demand is expanding as AI semiconductors become more advanced. Of the 181.1 billion yen in operating profit for the fiscal year ended March 2026, functional materials including ABF accounted for 54.6 billion yen, and while revenue was 100.7 billion yen, just 6.4% of the company total, it showed an extremely high profit margin. For the next fiscal year, ABF operating profit is expected to edge up to 60.5 billion yen, while biopharma services are forecast to see a sharp profit increase from 9.5 billion yen to 17 billion yen. Over the long term, ABF usage is expected to rise as substrates become more multilayered, but risks have also been noted from alternative technologies such as glass substrates and the entry of competitors.

Oracle shares fell about 11% after the company reported that capital spending for fiscal 2026 reached $55 billion, exceeding its $50 billion target, and outlined plans for $70 billion in fiscal 2027. The spending ramp is tied to a $638 billion remaining performance obligation backlog, more than half of which comes from OpenAI, while prepaid AI contracts total $75 billion. Motley Fool contributors noted that the rush by AI firms to go public—including the upcoming SpaceX IPO and confidential filings by OpenAI and Anthropic—is driven by massive capital needs and a favorable market. They identified bottlenecks in the AI build-out, highlighting PDF Solutions for chip-defect detection, Prologis for its data-center power capacity and 3,000 development-ready acres, and Japanese firms Nitto Boseki and Ajinomoto for specialized chip materials. The discussion also touched on the persistent valuation gap between U.S. and European stocks, with Exor NV cited as a holding company trading at 0.4 times book value.