Panasonic Holdings (PCRHY) has attracted fresh investor attention as the artificial intelligence infrastructure boom continues to lift demand for the company's electronic components, circuit-board materials, and storage batteries used in AI servers. The stock has more than doubled this year, pushing Panasonic's valuation to a record 11.5 trillion, or about $71 billion. Once better known as a global consumer electronics leader, Panasonic has been reducing its reliance on appliances and has become a key battery supplier to Tesla NASDAQ:TSLA. CEO Yuki Kusumi is now reshaping the business around cost cuts, stronger partnerships, and global growth areas tied to AI infrastructure.
Panasonic is aiming for about 1.4 trillion in AI infrastructure-related sales over the next three years, with Kusumi saying the company intends to capture the opportunity before turning it into a possible next growth engine. The company recently said it would invest around 500 billion through its next two fiscal years in businesses supporting AI infrastructure. Panasonic also expanded planned job cuts to as many as 12,000, up from a previously indicated 10,000, which could help raise annual savings to 145 billion compared with fiscal 2024. Kusumi pointed to Panasonic's work with major cloud operators running AI data centers as a competitive advantage, since its storage battery systems can help reduce peak power demand from GPU-heavy AI servers.
Still, Kusumi signaled caution, noting that Panasonic's current edge may not necessarily continue and that the company needs to prepare for change. Panasonic is already seeking to redirect production at a U.S. facility affected by Tesla EV battery production cuts into a manufacturing base for AT power systems. The stock is now trading at its highest level since September 1974, the earliest date for which data is available, while IwaiCosmo Securities analyst Norikazu Shimizu said Panasonic's price-earnings ratio of around 25 times may not be especially high compared with more AI-sensitive stocks. Last year, Panasonic also said it would adopt AI across its hardware and software businesses and work with Anthropic, targeting AI-related revenue of 30% within a decade.