AI server demand squeezes printed circuit board supply for PC makers

AI data centers are now competing with PC makers for printed circuit boards, the substrates that sit beneath nearly every electronic product. Factories are prioritizing complex, higher-priced boards for AI servers. HP, Dell and other PC makers worry that ordinary motherboard orders will arrive late. Nikkei Asia reported that one Taiwanese PC maker says laminate now costs at least 12 times what it did in July. One board maker told the outlet that a fresh order placed today wouldn't arrive until late 2028.

Part of the reason the squeeze reaches so far down the supply chain lies in the board itself. Every board starts as a sheet of copper-clad laminate, and a high-end AI server board can stack dozens of layers of low-loss laminate and specialty glass fabric. Each one therefore ties up far more material and factory time than a desktop motherboard does. Cloud providers are willing to pay for that capacity. Amazon bought a roughly NT$1.59 billion stake in the Taiwanese board maker Gold Circuit Electronics in September, according to TechSpot, which was summarizing Nikkei's reporting.

The delays are also visible in lead times. One board maker told Nikkei that lead times on a good chunk of its products have doubled. One of the world's biggest laminate suppliers said its order book already stretches into 2030, even though it plans to triple its capacity by 2028. New factories would not fix the problem quickly, because they are short on engineers. The scramble to hire has reportedly pushed pay across the PCB industry up by 20% to 30%.

The shortage is not confined to PCs. Canon said AI-driven shortages of boards and the parts mounted on them have held up production since August, and that it now expects to lose about ¥90 billion in medical equipment sales this year. The ripple also lands on buyers who are already paying more. TechSpot noted that memory and storage prices have climbed all year, and that Gartner thinks sub-$500 PCs could disappear by 2028.

The Forward Future newsletter summarized the story as a squeeze that could raise prices and delay PCs, cameras and medical equipment even when the chips themselves are available. Its underlying reporting says suppliers plan to add capacity, but skilled-worker shortages and long construction timelines limit how quickly they can respond.