PCB, fiberglass: NVIDIA inspires new industry demand, leading companies initiate a new round of expansion, and starting today, key materials will also see price increases.

I. Market Update

AI hardware industry chain surged in the early trading session. Zhongji Electronics’ shares hit the daily limit in the PCB sector, and Benchuan Intelligent tapped the daily limit as well. The Shandong Fiberglass sector surged too, with Shandong Jinko Fiber hitting the daily limit. In addition, in the cloud computing and server sector, multiple shares including China Meiliyun hit the daily limit.

II. Event: The PCB industry has kicked off another round of capacity expansion; there are also signals of ongoing price increases for copper foil and electronic fabric

1）In the latest disclosed investor relations activity record, Shenghong Technology said that the company is making every effort to push forward capacity expansion and to steadily implement its target of achieving 1 trillion yuan in output value by 2030. The company said that the order visibility for the PCB industry is typically around two months, while order visibility for high-end products is longer.

Wuhan Dian Co., Ltd.’s wholly owned subsidiary plans to invest 5.5 billion yuan to build a production project for high-layer-count, high-frequency, high-speed, high-density interconnect PCBs, and will add an additional 3.3 billion yuan in February 2026 to boost AI-chip supporting high-end PCB capacity.

In mid-March, Pengding Holding also announced that it plans to invest 11 billion yuan to build a high-end PCB base, focusing on three major areas: advanced HDI, SLP, and automotive PCBs.

2）To ensure Rubin is smoothly ready for mass production, industry sources recently said that NVIDIA Rubin Ultra’s design has been changed from 4-die to 2-die, which may further drive interconnect demand.

Previously, NVIDIA introduced a brand-new Mid plane design solution in the Rubin-series AI server racks, gradually replacing part of the original copper cable connections. The introduction of orthogonal backplanes will significantly enhance the overall PCB value within a single rack.

3）Products including Mitsubishi Gas Chemical CCL will increase in price by 30% starting April 1.（Securities Daily News)

III. Institutional Interpretation

1）Growing cluster scale, higher interconnect speeds, and integration of more complex functions are driving increased demand for high-layer-count, high-density, high-speed interconnect PCBs. The data center PCB market size will grow from $12.5 billion in 2024 to $23.0 billion in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 10.7% from 2024 to 2030.（Everbright Macro & Business Research）

2）Because there is currently strong demand for processing capacity for AI high-end PCB boards and supply is tight, PCB manufacturers are increasing their resource投入 across the AI datacom field. For upstream raw material manufacturers, PCB and CCL manufacturers are seeking more capacity supply from their respective upstream materials segments. Whether in the AI space or non-AI space, PCB and CCL capacity supply remains relatively tight.

3）For electronic fabric, supply gaps in the weaving machine segment in 2026–2027 may be as high as 6.1%/10.6%. Based on detailed calculations of future supply-demand gaps over the next two years, derived from a decomposition analysis of single-unit capacity for different fabric types, under neutral and conservative assumptions, the industry faces a 6.1%+ supply gap for weaving machines in 2026, and the gap in 2027 may further expand to 10.6%+.

Even under the most optimistic assumptions, in 2026–2027 it will only be possible to maintain tight supply-demand balance. With the structural growth trend driven by AI becoming established, and equipment supply unlikely to catch up in the short term, it is expected that the weaving machine supply-demand gap in 2026 will run through the entire year, supporting a continuous upward shift in the electronic fabric price mid-point. In 2027, supply-demand contradictions may fully break out, increasing distribution pressure for weaving machines, and the industry’s pricing logic may shift entirely toward scarcity-based pricing.（Zhongtai Securities）

4）As a basic component of PCBs, copper foil plays the carrier role for signal transmission, directly affecting the signal transmission efficiency and stability of electronic devices. Therefore, it is necessary to develop and iterate copper foil product technologies and processes to meet the usage needs of downstream end users. Among them, high-frequency, high-speed copper foils such as HVLP (ultra-low profile copper foil) and RTF (reversed copper foil) are expected to benefit from the explosive growth in computing power demand.

Because high-frequency, high-speed PCB copper foil involves high process difficulty and strict requirements for product performance, machining fees are high. In addition, influenced by factors such as elevated copper prices and tight supply, prices are expected to continue rising, which is favorable for domestic copper foil suppliers to enter the market and enhance profitability.

Electrification-driven iteration of AI computing-powered consumer electronics will expand copper foil volumes at the PCB level. According to the prospectus of Tongbo Technology and data from Frost & Sullivan, it is estimated that in 2029, the global PCB-level copper foil market size will grow from RMB 47.7 billion in 2024 to RMB 71.7 billion in 2029.（West China Securities）

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