Japanese Chemical Giant Asahi Kasei Announces AI-Powered Smart Lab to Quadruple Semiconductor Material R&D Experiments

Asahi Kasei Corporation, a major Japanese chemical and materials company, announced on November 5, 2026, that it will establish a "Smart Laboratory" at its branch in Fuji City, Shizuoka Prefecture. Scheduled to begin operations in January 2027, the facility will leverage artificial intelligence and automation technologies to accelerate the product development of "Pimer," its core photosensitive insulating material for semiconductors.

According to Asahi Kasei's official release, the new laboratory features a closed-loop system that automates the entire process from material design and experimental planning to raw material mixing, sample preparation, and performance evaluation simulating customer semiconductor packaging processes. The system automatically collects experimental data for machine learning, which then optimizes the next round of compositions and conditions. The company states that this autonomous experimental system can expand the number of development experiments (formulation combinations) conducted within a given period to approximately four times that of traditional methods.

This initiative responds to the increasing complexity and diversity of material performance requirements driven by advanced semiconductor innovations fueled by generative AI. In its "Medium-Term Business Plan 2027," Asahi Kasei has designated electronic materials, including Pimer, as a key growth business. The interlayer insulation film market is currently growing at an annual rate of about 8%, a trend expected to continue until around 2030. By adopting an AI-driven automated R&D platform, Asahi Kasei aims to overcome the efficiency bottlenecks of traditional manual research when facing vast variables, thereby responding more quickly to market demand for high-performance, highly reliable semiconductor packaging materials.