AI demand is absorbing printed circuit board manufacturing capacity once used to serve PC, smart device and gadget makers, with PCB order books reported full until 2030.
The AI industry continues to absorb manufacturing resources that once served PC, smart device, and gadget makers. Prices for RAM, GPUs, SSDs, and other components have risen sharply through 2026 as demand has outstripped supply. Now the most basic and unglamorous electronics necessity, the printed circuit board (PCB), looks set to follow. A report published by Nikkei Asia quotes several leading PC and PCB industry managers, making clear that PCB and PCB subcomponent shortages and price increases are coming in the months ahead.
An unnamed executive at an American PC maker told Nikkei about the severe PCB shortage. "Even though PC shipments could decline again next year, we are still struggling to secure enough PCB supplies to meet our needs," said the manager, who asked to remain anonymous. The executive was referring to securing enough supply to plan products for the coming year. Several commenters pointed to AI computing demand as the force consuming production capacity.
Nikkei also spoke with companies further up the supply chain, including PCB makers and makers of the components and materials needed to produce PCBs. Traditional PCB demand is becoming underserved as AI products demand more and pay more. One PCB maker told Nikkei that lead times for a significant number of products have doubled, with some PCB orders taking as long as 30 months to fulfill. Another PCB supplier said that a new order placed today would not be fulfilled until late 2028.
PCB makers are planning investments and expansions, but they also need to secure several upstream materials, including copper clad laminates (CCLs) and the specialized fiberglass used in PCB construction. One Taiwanese PC maker noted that CCL costs have surged at least 12 times since July. In addition, one of the world's leading CCL suppliers told Nikkei that its order book is already filling up to 2030, despite plans to triple its capacity by 2028.
In closely related developments, Nikkei observed that Nvidia recently announced partnerships with several major chip substrate makers. Chip substrates are essentially the tiny, intricate PCBs on which CPUs and GPUs are mounted. Japan's Ibiden, South Korea's Samsung Electro-Mechanics, and Taiwan's Unimicron have all signed new agreements with Nvidia. Unimicron plans to expand its capacity 2.5 times over the next three years.
PCBs have long been viewed as an unglamorous, lower-tech part of the supply chain, partly because of their small share of the bill of materials (BoM). That may change. Companies are now racing to ramp up production of advanced PCBs and chip substrates to meet demand and boost revenue.
Finally, the report notes that it is increasingly difficult to recruit the engineering staff needed for new production facilities. Salaries across the PCB industry have already risen 20% to 30% as companies work to retain skilled employees.