The next PCB demand cycle: AI, advanced boards and Thailand

Summary

MPBxChange expects the next PCB cycle to be driven by computing and networking demand, rising board complexity, automotive electronics and a more geographically diversified supply base. Published evidence does not point to a robot-led investment cycle in Thailand. The study draws on Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, US and international sources, with data to 30 September 2026.

Prismark's first-quarter 2026 series (dated June 2026 in Avary's prospectus),^[3] as reproduced in Chinese issuer filings, puts global PCB value at $85.836bn in 2025 (estimate) and $144.610bn in 2030 (forecast), an increase of 68.5%. The series includes IC package substrates and excludes mounted components and assembly revenue.^[1]

Shipped area rises from approximately 483 million to 628 million m² over the same period, an increase of 30.0%. Area is reported board area, distinct from board count and copper-layer area; the source publishes only part of its method. Set against area growth, value growth implies a 29.6% rise in value per square metre, which reflects product mix, complexity, pricing and possibly exchange rates rather than a like-for-like price increase.^[2]

Incremental value by board technology

On these endpoints, 18+ layer boards, HDI and IC substrates account for 73.2% of incremental value. Excluding substrates, the market grows from $70.945bn in 2025 to $115.000bn in 2030, or 62.1%. The 2030 categories sum exactly to the published total; the rounded 2026 categories sum to $0.001bn below it.^[1]

Prismark's end-market view classifies the same market by application, so its segments overlap the technology categories above. It gives server and data-storage PCB, including conventional servers and storage, a $16.031bn baseline growing 24.8% a year to 2030. At that rounded rate the segment reaches approximately $48.53bn in 2030, or 55.3% of total projected incremental value. Projected annual growth is 19.0% for wired infrastructure, 4.5% for phones, 2.9% for computers and 3.7% for consumer electronics.^[3]

Investment in Thailand

Investment in Thai PCB capacity reflects global demand growth combined with a geographic redistribution of manufacturing. Company disclosures set out the stated reasons and, where available, operating results.

• Shengyi's 2023 investment decision cites overseas orders, trade-policy exposure, comparative production costs and the supplier base.^[4]
• Shennan's original project budget of RMB1.27418bn is directed at international customers and global supply capability.^[5]
• CMK's September 2022 plan allocated approximately JPY25bn to phase one, targeting twice its baseline HDI capacity and up to four times with phase two fully equipped. The stated demand rationale included automotive CASE.^[6]
• WUS's H1 2026 report states that over 90% of overseas customers have certified its Thai data-communications division, that original capacity is essentially full, and that boards of up to 30 layers for 400G switches and AI servers are in volume production. It describes qualification and production achieved; the other three disclosures are investment plans.^[2]

Company results

Sources: Samsung's comparable quarterly releases,^[11][12] Meiko's May briefing,^[13] CMK's business report^[7] and Schweizer's interim release.^[18] Meiko's FY2025 ended March 2026; management states that its plan is based on customer forecasts, and gives increasing production demand in Southeast Asia as the reason it is concentrating investment in Vietnam.^[14]

Shennan reports depreciation, limited initial output and longer qualification by overseas customers during the ramp-up of its Thai plant. Turning a demand forecast into an investment case requires a qualification and cash-flow schedule.^[17]

Robotics

The Germany-based International Federation of Robotics (IFR) reports 603,000 industrial robot installations in 2025 and forecasts 806,000 in 2029.^[9][8] Approximately 7,000 full-size humanoids above 140cm were sold in 2025.^[10]

Bare-PCB content per robot, excluding chips, motors and assembly, is not published. For robots to support a $1bn annual PCB market, each of 806,000 units would need about $1,241 of bare boards; across 7,000 humanoids the threshold is about $142,857 per unit. The forecasts above include no separate robotics uplift.

Forecasting framework

An independent forecast can be built in five steps.

1. Demand: annual hardware shipments × boards per system × finished board area, calculated separately for servers, switches, accelerators, storage and power boards, with each module counted once.
2. Value: good finished area × realized price per good square metre, by technology, with IC substrates in a compatible, separate series.
3. Factory workload: finished area ÷ (panel nesting efficiency × final yield), checked against laser drilling, lamination, plating and testing capacity.
4. Thailand share: change in output = initial share × global growth + initial global market × share change + global growth × share change, in consistent units and product definitions.
5. Validation: quarterly models fitted only on information published at each forecast date, tested on rolling future periods against seasonal-naive and trend baselines, with out-of-sample errors and interval coverage reported.

The IEA projects data-centre electricity use rising from 485TWh in 2025 to 950TWh in 2030. The projection serves as a consistency check on hardware demand; its link to PCB volume depends on hardware efficiency, utilization and replacement rates.^[16]

The figures in this article are reconciled published forecasts and quantities derived from them. A Thailand-wide output estimate would require a comparable census of factory capacity and sales.

Source reconciliation

Prismark's public web summary (2026) gives $123.3bn for 2030, from $85.2bn in 2025, without dating the forecast. The first-quarter 2026 series quoted in issuer filings gives $144.610bn, 17.3% higher, and is the version used here. The issuer filings cited all reproduce this one Prismark forecast.^[15]

Growth rates in this article are calculated from published endpoints. Shengyi prints 72.8% growth for 18+ layer boards in 2026; its endpoints of $5.254bn and $9.406bn give 79.0%. WUS gives 5.4% a year for shipped area from 2025 to 2030, and the rounded 483 and 628 endpoints give 5.39%. The 5.8% area growth that WUS sets against value growth in the same paragraph is a separate comparison, not a second estimate of the 2025 to 2030 rate.