AI Boom: Why Japan's Manufacturing Sector "Profits Without Expanding Production"?

Deutsche Bank notes that amid the global AI boom, Japan's semiconductor and electronic components sectors are experiencing "price increases without volume growth," with capacity expansion significantly lagging behind South Korea. The root cause lies in structural labor shortages and resource misallocation: market rigidity stemming from the lifetime employment system, extremely low elasticity of capital-labor substitution, and insufficient STEM talent supply collectively constrain companies' willingness to tap potential and expand production, making it difficult to convert AI opportunities into actual capacity.