Panasonic localizes U.S. battery supply chain for Kansas data-center cells

Panasonic plans to make battery cells for data centers at its De Soto plant in Kansas. In a June 30 interview in Tokyo, Panasonic Energy chief executive Yuki Kusumi said the company wants to complete as much of the supply chain as possible inside the United States because most of its customers are American and shipping sensitive hardware across the Pacific no longer makes strategic sense.

Panasonic plans to start mass production there in fiscal 2028, which ends in March 2029. The move is part of a broader AI infrastructure investment program, with about 350 billion yen of a 500 billion yen package earmarked for the Energy unit. Panasonic Energy also plans a third plant in Mexico, with mass production targeted for fiscal 2028.

The De Soto factory opened on July 14, 2025 and covers about 4.7 million square feet on roughly 300 acres. The site is designed for about 32 GWh of annual battery-cell capacity and should eventually lift U.S.-based battery production capacity to about 73 GWh when fully operational. The Kansas plant builds on Panasonic's Nevada operation, which has run since 2017, employs more than 4,000 people and has delivered more than 11 billion cells.

High-performance AI servers have made stable power supply a major issue for data centers, pushing demand for systems that can smooth power use and handle peak loads. The company is developing storage products for that market instead of relying only on the automotive business that long anchored its battery strategy.

Kusumi said Panasonic does not plan to make lithium iron phosphate batteries. He said the company is focused on distributed systems that smooth demand at individual servers, while LFP is better suited to larger centralized backup uses and is cheaper than the nickel-heavy chemistry widely used in North America. He added that Panasonic was not struggling to secure supplies from China, even as China and Japan remain under strain, and said the company was not among the 20 Japanese firms added to Beijing's dual-use export control list this week.

Panasonic's North America strategy includes localized supply chains, recycling and upstream materials work.