'In the AI Era, the Physical World Reclaims Value': CADDi CEO Kato's Contrarian Case

Amid an AI-stock frenzy, CADDi CEO Yushiro Kato offers a contrarian view: the hotter AI demand runs, the more the physical world's value is rediscovered. The logic is that even the best generative AI needs feedstock, and the scarcest, hardest-to-copy feedstock is decades of drawings, methods, quality data and supply-chain ties on the factory floor. Silicon Valley can build the models, but value in industrial settings requires structured, trustworthy manufacturing data held by makers in Japan and Germany. CADDi structures and platforms the drawings and quotes scattered across countless small manufacturers, making 'owning physical-world data' a moat. For readers this matters twice. As investors: while crowds chase pure-software AI, firms bridging real manufacturing and data AI, with real revenue and data assets, may be undervalued as old-economy names. As an industry lens: Japan's 'digitally behind' label flips, since the interfaces lag but the underlying craft data does not. Watch whether such platforms keep scaling clients and data, Japan's manufacturing-DX policy support, and whether the 'physical plus AI' model turns a profit.