Jensen Huang turns Tokyo izakaya into AI power summit with Japan’s chip industry leaders
On Wednesday night, Jensen Huang met with little-known Japanese suppliers supporting the AI supply chain in Tokyo’s central Kanda district.
Nvidia Corp.’s chief executive has walked into a cozy izakaya in the area popular for after-work drinks and transformed a narrow alley known for grilled pork skewers and cases of beer into a theater for the AI boom. Outside, a crowd of people, smartphones raised, filed in, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man they dubbed kawajan-san — Mr. Leather Jacket — on social media, and whose chips have become the center of the global artificial intelligence race.
Seated inside were the chiefs of Kioxia Holdings Corp., a maker of advanced flash memory chips; Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., the world’s leading advanced silicon wafer provider; chip gear designer Tokyo Electron Ltd.; and Ajinomoto Co., the sole supplier of the film used in cutting-edge chip packages. Fiber optic cable manufacturer Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. and the presidents of Taiyo Yuden Co., a maker of advanced capacitors. Yuki Kusumi of Panasonic Holdings Corp. was also seen at the bar.
The meeting was testament to the breadth of engineering, components and hardware on which Nvidia’s next wave of AI systems will rely. Beyond its own graphics processors, the company needs advanced memory, networking, substrates, chemicals and manufacturing know-how provided by companies in Japan’s vast industrial ecosystem. Nitto Boseki Co., for example, is responsible for nearly all of the world’s ultra-thin T-Glass fabric, which is used to prevent chips from warping. The CEO was also in Kanda.
Huang had said earlier that day that the foundations of semiconductor manufacturing, from high-purity materials to equipment and packaging systems, come from Japan. The Taiwan-born billionaire said, “Manufacturing is done all over the world, but is the basic technology, chemical technology, material technology, basic science done here in Japan?” he said.
Huang braved Tokyo’s oppressive humidity by wearing a brand new leather jacket gifted by his wife. He handed out bottles of sake to executives, joked around over skewers of smoky yakiton pork, and emerged later to hand out red bean cakes to spectators gathered outside.
The crowd was pleased. The world’s most valuable company, valued at more than $5.1 trillion, has sent its co-founder and talismanic leader to take Japan’s quiet industrial champions to court in one of the most traditional Tokyo neighborhoods. Huang exchanged pleasantries with a person outside the izakaya who asked Nvidia to make its products cheaper, and the two eventually shook hands.
After dinner, reporters asked Tokyo Electron CEO Toshiki Kawai what Huang wanted from the Japanese supply chain. “Oh, there’s a lot of expectations,” Kawai said, without going into too much detail.
