Not the Allbirds effect: Japan’s top bidet maker Toto has been quietly making chip supplies for decades, and the stock market finally noticed

Whenever someone visits Japan, they mention the sights, the food, the impeccable transportation. Oftentimes, they mention futuristic toilets: the ubiquity of bidets, their sound effects, and the turbo-powered jets that keep you clean.

Now Japan’s largest bidet maker, Toto, is doubling down on AI chips.

The announcement followed Allbirds’ pivot to become a chipmaker. But unlike the one-time shoe company’s switch from comfort to compute, Toto didn’t just flush its old business to make chips: it’s been making the same components to power the world’s AI infrastructure for years.

The ‘Allbirds’ effect

Last month, Allbirds, the sustainable shoe company that IPO’d in 2021 at $4.1 billion, watched sales halve, lost 99% of its stock value, and sold its brand for $39 million—then rebranded as NewBird AI.

It raised $50 million to buy GPUs, declared itself a “fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service provider,” asked shareholders to strip out its founding environmental mission, and surged 582% in a single session. Retail investors set a single-day purchase record, but saw the stock to drop over 20% the next day.

There wasn’t a technical team or any cloud experience—it was simply a shoe company with a Read Entire Article