AI demand hits PCBs and parts
- AI orders are reshaping downstream suppliers like PCB makers and Korean electronic‑component plants. - Victory Giant Technology said order momentum is strong and IPO proceeds will fund AI expansion. - Reports that Nvidia teams are staging near Korean plants underline how component and PCB supply are becoming critical bottlenecks ( ).
Artificial-intelligence spending is now squeezing some of the least glamorous links in electronics: printed circuit boards and tiny passive parts. (digitimes.com) Victory Giant Technology, a Chinese printed circuit board supplier to Nvidia, debuted in Hong Kong on April 21 after raising about HK$20.1 billion, or $2.57 billion, and its shares rose as much as 60% in early trading. CNBC reported the stock was still up 46% at HK$306.8 later in the session. (cnbc.com) Victory Giant said in its prospectus that it ranked first globally by sales revenue in printed circuit boards for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing in the first half of 2025, with a 13.8% market share, according to Frost & Sullivan data cited in the filing. The company makes advanced boards used in accelerator cards, servers, switches and optical modules. (thestandard.com.hk, whtc.com) A printed circuit board is the layered base that connects chips, memory and power parts inside a server, like a road grid under a city. As artificial-intelligence servers pack in more processors, faster memory and denser wiring, those boards need more layers, tighter spacing and more heat control than boards used in ordinary consumer devices. (digitimes.com, thebambooworks.com) The same squeeze is showing up in South Korea’s component plants. A Korea Economic Daily report, carried in English by Bloomingbit on April 21, said big tech companies are monitoring production schedules and factory utilization in real time at suppliers such as Samsung Electro-Mechanics and LG Innotek as flip-chip ball grid array substrates and multilayer ceramic capacitors remain in short supply. (en.bloomingbit.io) Those parts do different jobs, but both are basic to keeping an artificial-intelligence server running. Flip-chip ball grid array substrates act as the fine-pitch bridge between a chip package and the board, while multilayer ceramic capacitors smooth and stabilize power, and TrendForce said on March 31 that high-capacity, high-spec multilayer ceramic capacitor demand remained strong even as consumer electronics stayed soft. (en.bloomingbit.io, trendforce.com) Investors have started treating those suppliers less like commodity manufacturers and more like scarce infrastructure. Seoul Economic Daily reported on April 10 that Samsung Electro-Mechanics jumped more than 12% on expectations it could expand its role in Nvidia’s supply chain, with Meritz Securities pointing to its ability to supply both silicon capacitors and Ajinomoto build-up film substrates. (en.sedaily.com) The bottleneck has been moving downstream for months. Memory and advanced chips still dominate headlines, but the latest reports point to a narrower constraint: the boards, substrates and capacitors that have to be ready before an artificial-intelligence rack can ship. (digitimes.com, en.bloomingbit.io, trendforce.com) That is why a circuit-board listing in Hong Kong and factory checks near Korean component plants are landing in the same story. The race to build more artificial-intelligence systems is now running through the suppliers that connect chips, deliver power and hold the whole machine together. (cnbc.com, en.bloomingbit.io, digitimes.com)
