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The story
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, the man behind the AI chip giant, made a lightning visit to Japan this July. While a get-together at a yakiton (grilled pork skewer) joint in Kanda drew attention online as the “Yakiton Summit,” it’s now been reported that a separate one-on-one meeting also took place at a Tokyo hotel. The other party: Ibiden, a components maker based in Ogaki, Gifu Prefecture, that has been growing its presence in substrate materials for semiconductor packaging. Threads lit up in surprise at the news that Nvidia had even arranged an advance payment to secure supply. At the same time, comments piled up debating the position of Japanese firms in the supply chain, with remarks like “aren’t they barely profitable?” and “subcontractors get such a small cut.”
“We Have No Choice But to Rely on Ibiden” — The “True Identity” of the Japanese Company Nvidia’s CEO Paid a Massive Advance to Secure
Nvidia, the AI chip giant, is now the darling of the era. Jensen Huang, the CEO who built this global tech powerhouse, paid a lightning visit to Japan this July. While a get-together at a yakiton joint in Kanda drew attention as the “Yakiton Summit,” a separate closed-door, knee-to-knee meeting was also held at a five-star hotel in Tokyo. What was discussed there? (Titles omitted in the text.)
Six grilled skewers, a mountain of french fries, and motsunabe (offal hot pot) finished off with ramen… It’s a filling course for 4,500 yen a head, with two hours of all-you-can-drink included. The guests probably never imagined they’d be treated to a menu straight out of a college drinking party — courtesy of a billionaire whose personal fortune rivals Denmark’s national budget.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
That's just the 'I' and the 'N' matching, lol
It used to be one of those companies only locals really knew about — never imagined it'd become a name everyone's talking about like this.
Talk about a glow-up — from mystery semiconductor maker to this.
I didn't know Ibiden and was reading it thinking it was something like 'ebiten' (fried shrimp tempura).
You mean the gathering at the bar in Kanda?
ʅ（◞‿◟）ʃ
Of course they're reaching out to plenty of others too.
I've heard Japan has an edge geopolitically and thanks to stable power supply.
Foreign capital's gonna snatch up the tech again.
They're doing this advance-payment thing precisely because they can't buy them out.
Ibiden's women's volleyball team is the strongest!
Cute too.
https://www.ibiden.co.jp/company/sports/volleyball/
But they're less exposed to those crazy boom-bust swings, right?
Gifu Bus is one — what's the other?
Seino Transportation, duh (the kangaroo delivery company)
That's proof they're barely paying their suppliers —
you don't get margins like that otherwise.
High margins just go straight back to shareholders.
Bottom line:
American tech companies are basically skilled at the finance game too.
If you take ordinary ingredients and turn them into a fancy dish, of course the margin's gonna be high lol
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G_6SgqkbIAAe3yV.jpg
At the end of the day it's still not that profitable —
still just a subcontractor's lot, no matter how you slice it.
This kind of sour-grapes talk never went away, even since the Samsung days.
It's basically a victory only in your head. The subcontractor's cut is extremely limited.
The real question is: how much has Japan actually profited from it?
I know yakitori places that are good there, but was yakiton actually famous there?
Saitama Prefecture has some famous yakiton and motsuyaki (grilled offal) spots.
Background and Key Points of the Discussion
Ibiden is a company based in Ogaki, Gifu Prefecture, that makes printed circuit boards and semiconductor packaging materials — the kind of manufacturer most ordinary consumers had never heard of. But with AI chip demand exploding, it’s grown into one of the few companies capable of producing ultra-high-layer FC-BGA substrates and advanced packaging materials, to the point where Nvidia arranged an advance payment just to secure supply. The thread split between two camps: one argued that “materials and parts makers are important but don’t make much money,” while the other countered that “even with low margins, they deserve credit for being a linchpin of the supply chain.” Voices criticizing the meager cut subcontractors receive clashed with those praising Japan’s technological edge. Comparisons with Taiwanese firms and the grip Japanese companies hold on EUV-generation photoresist technology also came up — useful points for understanding the structure of the semiconductor supply chain.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “Nvidia’s US CEO: ‘We Have No Choice But to Rely on Japan’s Ibiden’ — The ‘True Identity’ of the Japanese Company He Paid a Massive Chunk of 280 Billion Yen in Advance to Secure.”
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