en.Wedoany.com Reported - Panasonic Group plans to localize its energy storage system supply chain in the United States and is preparing to produce battery cells at a factory in Kansas as part of a transition to supplying data centers. The company's CEO, Yuki Kusumi, stated in a roundtable interview in Tokyo on Tuesday that since energy storage system customers are primarily in the US, completing the supply chain within the country is reasonable.

Panasonic announced this month that it plans to begin mass production of battery cells for data centers at its energy division's Kansas factory in the fiscal year ending March 2029. This division also produces batteries for Tesla. Currently, automakers and battery companies facing a sluggish US electric vehicle market are racing to convert battery factories into energy storage system production lines to meet the power demands of artificial intelligence development.

Yuki Kusumi stated that Panasonic does not plan to produce lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, adding that such batteries are less suitable for the decentralized system strategy the company focuses on. Panasonic believes decentralized systems help smooth peak power demand for individual servers, while LFP batteries are better suited for large-scale centralized backup power applications. LFP batteries are widely adopted in energy storage systems due to their lower cost compared to the high-nickel chemical materials commonly used in North American EV batteries.

Yuki Kusumi noted that despite ongoing tensions between Beijing and Tokyo, Panasonic has not encountered difficulties in sourcing supplies from China. This week, China added 20 Japanese companies to its dual-use export control list, but Panasonic was not among them.