Fujifilm to spend ¥10 billion on Odawara tape expansion

Fujifilm said it will allocate ¥10 billion (USD 63.3 million) to expand its Odawara plant near Tokyo, a project that will multiply its magnetic tape production capacity fivefold by fiscal 2028, according to Nikkei Asia. The company has not disclosed its expected annual output after the expansion.

The investment is Fujifilm's largest in tape production in roughly 20 years and will focus on advanced cartridges capable of holding up to 100TB. Fujifilm said the capacity increase responds to rising data storage demand driven by AI.

Fujifilm's analysis with Brad Johns Consulting puts tape storage costs at about 1 cent per GB, against 3–3.5 cents per GB for raw HDD storage. The company began developing magnetic tape in 1954 for television broadcasting equipment before moving into audio and video recording.

The expansion comes as other Japanese suppliers put money into storage components. Kioxia plans to invest ¥5 trillion over six years with Sandisk to expand semiconductor memory production, Toshiba intends to spend about ¥60 billion to enlarge its Philippine hard-drive factory and double capacity, and Hoya plans a ¥50 billion investment in Vietnam for hard-drive glass substrates. NHK Spring has outlined an additional ¥35 billion in production spending.

Demand-side pressure is part of the backdrop: a 2026 IDC survey found that 94.7% of organizations reported storing larger volumes of information after adopting AI technologies, and IDC estimates global data generation could reach 718 zettabytes by 2030, about four times the 2024 volume. Semiconductor shortages are pushing up SSD prices, while rising data center demand is pressuring hard-disk drive supplies.