Toilet Maker Toto Rides AI Boom With Ceramics for NAND Chips

Japanese toilet manufacturer Toto is benefiting from the artificial intelligence boom through its advanced ceramics division, which produces components used in NAND memory chips. Toto's ceramics business, established in 1984 and best known for its bidet-style Washlet toilets, gained 34 percent over last year thanks to AI chip demand. The division accounted for 55 percent of Toto's 53.8 billion yen ($343.5 million) operating profit. Toto is the world's second-largest producer of electrostatic chucks used to manufacture NAND memory, which securely hold silicon wafers during fabrication via electrostatic force. Toto expects the ceramics division to continue growing rapidly, around 27 percent next year. The company plans to invest another 30 billion yen (approximately $192 million) over the next fiscal year to boost mass production and research and development. The division also produces aerosol deposition components and structural parts used in large LCD panel manufacturing. Toto is not the only unlikely Japanese company capitalizing on AI-driven chip demand. Cosmetics manufacturer Kao produces cleaning agents for semiconductors, and MSG inventor Ajinomoto is investing 25 billion yen ($159.5 million) in insulating film used for motherboards.