Recently, there has been a lot of news on the Internet. One of the world's largest toilet manufacturers, TOTO, has seen its stock price skyrocket due to AI. Compared with December last year, its stock price has increased by nearly 200% this year.
Ajinomoto, the inventor of modern MSG, and Caterpillar, the maker of excavators, are also the same? ? ?
They were all taken away by AI...
No matter how these companies seem to be incompatible with AI, many netizens trying to understand the internal logic have let their imaginations run wild.
Could it be that the toilet is connected to a large model?
Add AI recognition to analyze personal health through the frequency and duration of urine and feces colors, bind the software to remind you to poop, interact with your social circle on pooping health rankings, share pooping experiences, and use AI to help you find friends with similar odors!
But after reading some more information carefully, I found that things are not that simple.
It’s not that these toilets, MSG, and excavators have embraced AI and increased their prices. On the contrary, they have stuck in AI’s neck.
AI's neck is really long. The toilet and MSG can get stuck. How can I still breathe?
Seeing this, some readers may think of the "Industrial Survey" we wrote before. Is this another cool story about giant rigging that the marketing account just compiled?
Shichao also carefully checked the information and considered it, and found that,These stories are really not made up, but the actual situation is not as mysterious as everyone says.
Let’s start with the most classic MSG corporate card AI neck. . .
The essence of MSG is glutamic acid, which is an amino acid.Therefore, MSG companies appear to be food seasoning companies, but the manufacturing process inevitably involves various fermentation industries, food industries, and fine chemicals.
One of the founders of Ajinomoto, Kikunae Ikeda, who has the honor of being the "Father of Modern MSG", is also a chemist himself.
In the last century, Ajinomoto obtained a by-product of chlorinated paraffin during the production of MSG, which can soften resin. This inspired Ajinomoto. In addition to making condiments, can we also make chemical additives and derivatives that change the properties of resin?
As the saying goes, come what may...
Following this line, Ajinomoto researched all the way and developed resin modified materials, flame retardants, insulating resin formulas, etc.
They have a product called PLENSET. This resin adhesive has excellent performance and is used in high-precision electronic components such as camera modules, semiconductor packaging, and automotive electronics.
There is also an insulating material, ABF, which is also an epoxy resin formula with high insulation, low thermal expansion, and easy processing. It can be processed into rolls of very thin solid films, which are ABF build-up films.
This thing looks a bit like plastic wrap, but each layer is only about 10 microns thick. For reference, the diameter of our hair is 80 microns.
To put it simply, the connection points of advanced CPU and GPU chips are so dense that ordinary motherboards cannot connect them. Therefore, they must be connected through the transfer bridge of the packaging substrate to increase the signal level on the chip to the level that the motherboard can receive it. This packaging substrate is made up of multiple layers of copper circuits and ABF insulation materials.
Every one of our current AI chips, whether it is GPU, TPU or AI ASIC, generally relies on this material.
When interviewed by the media, Ajinomoto engineers stated that ABF, as the insulation material for FC-BGA, occupies 95% of the global market share.
So Intel, Nvidia, and AMD all have to queue up to wait for supply from this MSG company. This is really true.
At the same time, the AI era has higher requirements for chip performance. The larger the chip, the more ABF a single chip eats.
According to Ajinomoto's materials, in the past, ordinary substrates used 6 layers of ABF, but now high-performance substrates require 18 layers, and the area is 3.5 times that of before.
Overall usage is more than 10 times what it was before…
Ajinomoto's revenue is mainly divided into three major segments: seasonings and food, frozen food, medical care and others.
You guessed it right, electronic materials are the others in medical care and others. Last year, the operating profit of this segment increased by 45.1% year-on-year.
This year, Palliser, an investment institution that invested in Ajinomoto, also asked Ajinomoto to increase its prices. The general idea is that ABF materials, as a key material in AI infrastructure, need to increase their prices by at least 30%. Even if the price increase has a small impact on upstream companies, it will have a great impact on Ajinomoto's revenue.
Stuck in the neck is a Shuangwen expression,In fact, it is because the AI revolution is coming so fiercely that it has now re-illuminated a number of materials, processes and suppliers hidden in traditional industries.
There are quite a few stories like this if you search carefully...
TOTO, recognized as the "King of Toilet".
However, as a ceramic expert, we have retained large-scale pouring molding technology, firing technology and grinding processing technology in the field of sanitary ceramics and faucet accessories, and we have also done a lot of research on inorganic materials including precision ceramics and other inorganic materials.
In semiconductor manufacturing equipment, there is a high-precision ceramic "suction cup", an electrostatic chuck, which is TOTO's technology. In the 2026 financial report, TOTO's advanced ceramics business increased by 34% year-on-year, due to the increase in sales brought about by products such as electrostatic chucks.
Caterpillar, the excavator giant, is a world-famous heavy industry company.
Because AI data centers consume too much power and are too afraid of power outages, major manufacturers are looking for stable and reliable super power generation equipment all over the world, and they have focused on their power generation equipment. The Power & Energy business has taken off.
Modine is responsible for cooling cars and tractors. It used to be responsible for keeping tractor engines from overheating, but now it is responsible for keeping GPUs from overheating.
Sakura, a stationery company, also came to join in the fun.
The previous experience of studying how to stabilize the color of colored pencils and crayons was transferred to the semiconductor manufacturing process, and it became a small hit.
MSG, toilets, stationery, excavators, traditional old industries, one after another, take turns to choke the new king of the times. This plot looks like the author of street stall literature drew lots from the "Shuangwen Random Lexicon" with his eyes closed.
But if you take a closer look, you will find that the reality is not a cool article.
How can you get rich overnight? Being able to catch the dividends relies on the hard currency that I have saved during the long industrial cycle: material formulas, precision processing, mass production experience, stable delivery capabilities, and basic industrial skills.
Moreover, the statement that it is stuck in the neck sounds cool, but in fact it has to be discounted.
The semiconductor industry is indeed conservative. The more sophisticated the link, the less likely it is to change suppliers casually. If there is a problem with one manufacturing part, it may affect the yield and stability of an entire batch of products. Long-term stability and trust are also the moats of this batch of old factories.
But no matter how thick the moat is, it will not be as wide as the Pacific Ocean.
The demand brought by AI is too strong. Old drivers are upgrading like crazy, and new drivers are also catching up. Even for materials like ABF and electrostatic chucks, the market is surrounded by wolves. Manufacturers from Japan, Mainland China, and Taiwan are all rushing to catch up.
In April this year, Lotus Holdings (i.e. Lotus MSG) acquired Shenzhen Newface, a domestic company that mass-produces ABF film. You taste carefully.
Maybe some of the missionaries started slapping their thighs when they saw this.
OK! Today, the bad reviewer is here to give away the wealth code! I will operate according to this idea when the market opens tomorrow.
Here, let’s pour some cold water:I strongly do not recommend that you follow this idea and blindly buy stocks.
Because the reflex arc of the capital market is much faster than ours, by the time you realize this logic, business opportunities have already been tapped for several rounds.
Even for some companies, orders have not yet been received, but their stock prices have risen several times due to emotional investment. For example, Dayuan Pump Industry, which sells pumps, became popular with liquid-cooled data centers. Starting from July 31, 2025, its stock rose by 98.48% in the past half month.
The direct stock trading risk reminder emphasizes that in the first quarter of 2025, the company's sales revenue from products directly used for data center liquid cooling actually accounted for only 0.43% (about 1.6 million yuan).
There is also Hongsheng Co., Ltd., which specializes in compressors and agricultural machinery. It is also because the data center liquid cooling field has repeatedly hit the limit. In January this year, it announced that it has not yet generated revenue in the data center liquid cooling field.
Outside: It’s your turn to be rich and wealthy!
Interior: Only a few small splashes so far…
For industrial enterprises, the real revelation of these stuck-neck stories may be that the real industrial chain is never a few arrows in a PPT, but countless seemingly inconspicuous materials, processes, equipment and experiences, layered on top of each other. Hard Kung Fu has its place in all times.
As for us ordinary people, we can just move to a small bench and read some contrasting articles to gain some insights.
As for charging with a full warehouse and hoping to get rich overnight by buying toilets and MSG?
We are not sure whether the end of technology will be AI, but the end of blindly following trends and emotional investment will definitely be green leek fields.