Ajinomoto ABF Film Price Hike 30% Strains AI Chip Supply Chain, Over 50 Chinese Consumer Companies Pivot to

In 1908, Professor Kikunae Ikeda of Tokyo Imperial University isolated glutamate from kelp soup, and businessman Suzuki Saburosuke named it Ajinomoto and brought it to market. Ajinomoto's accumulation of industrial control capabilities in fermentation, separation, and purification for MSG production was later applied to amino acid production, expanding from seasonings to food, pharmaceuticals, feed, and fine chemicals. Research teams discovered that byproducts of MSG production could be made into a resin-like synthetic material with high insulation, durability, low thermal expansion, and ease of processing, but the lack of applications shelved the discovery.

In 1996, Intel sought to use Ajinomoto's amino acid technology to develop thin-film insulating materials for CPUs. Ajinomoto's team completed ABF prototype and sample development in four months, and after three years of R&D, Intel officially adopted it. In Q3 2026, Ajinomoto announced a 30% price increase for ABF, straining the global AI chip supply chain.

Since H2 2025, multiple Chinese listed consumer companies have invested in hard tech. Byers' revenue fell from approximately RMB 9.4 billion in 2023 to about RMB 6.3 billion in 2025; Yangyuan's 2025 net profit of RMB 1.26 billion halved from its 2018 peak; Ande faced consumer sugar reduction pressure, with unsweetened tea expansion squeezing the concentrated juice market; Jinzi Ham cited slow main business development in investment announcements. ChatGPT sparked a global AI boom in 2023, and DeepSeek's explosion in 2025 further fueled it. Toread's dual main business of outdoor and chips quadrupled its market value in four years; Allbirds renamed NewBird pivoted to computing power leasing, surging 582% in a single day; Lotus Holdings, pivoting to computing power since 2023, saw its share price rise from about RMB 6 to nearly RMB 13, adding about RMB 12.5 billion in market value.

From 2023 to 2024, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron collectively lost over USD 50 billion.

Consumer companies' pivot to hard tech generally follows three paths. The first is small financial equity stakes. In June 2026, Byers invested RMB 50 million in Yuanli Semiconductor, holding a 0.97% stake. Yuanli's 2025 revenue was RMB 3.7966 million, with a net loss of RMB 62.9594 million; in Q1 2026, it had no revenue, and quarterly losses widened to RMB 10.9152 million, with a post-investment valuation exceeding RMB 5.1 billion. Byers described the investment as purely financial, aiming to establish a cognitive window into frontier tech. In H1 2026, Byers made five tech investments, totaling over RMB 300 million, with individual stakes generally below 1%. The company holds over RMB 2.3 billion in cash and a debt ratio of about 20%.

The second path is controlling acquisitions or industrial fund investments. Wahaha has invested in smart manufacturing, robotics, new materials, and biomedicine through Wahaha Ventures since 2021, including chip unicorn Moore Threads. Tsingtao Brewery led a RMB 1 billion industrial fund with RMB 400 million, focusing on cultural tech and consumer industry transformation. Zhong Shanshan invested RMB 500 million in solid-state battery electrolytes through Yangshengtang, holding a 10% stake, and is positioning in embodied intelligence and photonic chips. SDIC Zhonglu acquired China Electronics Engineering Design Institute for RMB 6 billion, focusing on semiconductor plant and computing center design and construction.

The third path uses AI and smart manufacturing to transform traditional industries. Haitian was named by the World Economic Forum as the first lighthouse factory in global soy sauce brewing, with self-developed AI bean face recognition for soybean selection and AI electronic noses collecting over 170 aroma data points to build a soy sauce aroma library, freeing koji-making from traditional models. Bosideng's self-developed AI aesthetic brain empowers design and R&D, embedding AI across the full chain. Anta plans to invest another RMB 20 billion over five years, focusing on professional sports, high-end outdoor, and ice and snow tech.

In Q1 2026, Toread's chip business revenue was RMB 179 million, up 206.92% year-on-year, accounting for 36.09% of total revenue. Toread's chip layout has strategic synergy with its outdoor main business, with self-developed chips used in intelligent exoskeletons and other terminal products, and acquired targets in display driver ICs and touch ICs, with teams dispatched for integration. Haitian built a vertical large model, converting veteran experience into data models. Gree built its own silicon carbide chip factory, with 10 million air conditioners using self-developed chips and a yield rate above 99%.

According to McKinsey 2018-2025 reports, traditional companies' hard tech pivot failure rate is about 70% to 75%. Lianchu Securities' 2024 A-share M&A report shows cross-industry high-tech M&A failure rate of 57.2%, about 2.5 times that of intra-industry integration. Byers' invested Yuanli Semiconductor had 2025 revenue of only RMB 3.7966 million and a net loss of RMB 62.9594 million. Crayon Shin-chan's HKD 188 million acquisition of an AI company lost RMB 41.45 million and RMB 20.88 million in 2024 and 2025, respectively. Annil's AI computing power pivot brought seven consecutive limit-ups, then the bubble burst, with the actual controller reducing holdings by over 59%.