Japan companies' pretax profits rise 19% in July-September amid AI demand

Pretax profits at Japanese companies in the July-September period rose 19.7 percent from a year earlier to 27.54 trillion yen ($177 billion), marking a fourth straight quarterly increase, driven by strong demand in the field of artificial intelligence, the Finance Ministry said Monday.Although pretax profits in the transportation equipment sector tumbled 14.0 percent due to higher U.S. tariffs, among manufacturers as a whole they climbed 23.4 percent to 10 trillion yen on robust demand for AI data centers and semiconductor-making equipment.Nonmanufacturers reported a 17.6 percent increase i…READ FULL ARTICLE