Artificial intelligence has fuelled a global race to build faster chips, larger data centres and more powerful computing systems, propelling companies like Nvidia into the spotlight. Yet some of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI revolution are businesses that few people would associate with cutting-edge technology. In Japan, manufacturers known for making toilets, glass fibre and food seasonings have quietly become indispensable to the semiconductor industry. Rather than designing AI chips or developing large language models, they produce specialised materials without which advanced processors could not be manufactured or packaged. As AI investment surges worldwide, these decades-old companies are emerging as some of the industry's most surprising winners.
Why Japanese companies making toilets, glass fibre and seasonings are winning the AI boom
