In August 2025, Suzhou Dongshan Precision’s subsidiary announced an investment of $350 million in Hong Kong Chao Yi Group to advance high-end printed circuit board projects. Just recently, this company announced plans to invest no more than $1 billion to build similar projects.
Almost simultaneously, the 3 billion yuan high-reliability circuit board project of Si Hui Fu Shi commenced, and the 1 billion yuan convertible bond issuance plan of Aoshikang was disclosed, while Huadian Co., Ltd. initiated a 4.3 billion yuan project to expand production of high-end printed circuit boards for AI chips.
The intense capital operations are driven by the AI revolution’s profound reshaping of the electronic industry’s fundamental component—printed circuit boards (PCBs).
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AI computing power ignites demand, high-end PCBs see both volume and price soar
The global AI server market is experiencing explosive growth. According to data from Sullivan, global AI server shipments surged from 500,000 units in 2020 to 2 million units in 2024, with a compound annual growth rate of 45.2%.
Compared to ordinary servers, AI servers have exponentially higher requirements for PCBs. Traditional servers typically use 14-24 layer circuit boards, while AI servers require 20-30 layer high multilayer boards, with the value of a single unit reaching 5-7 times that of traditional servers.
“The explosive growth in demand for training and inference of large AI models directly drives the surge in demand for high-speed computing server PCBs,” said Xie Shuqin, Executive Director of Sullivan Greater China. “Such devices require high multilayer boards with more than 18 layers to support PCIe 5.0/6.0 high-speed transmission protocols.”
Market research firm Prismark predicts that by 2025, the global PCB market value will exceed $78.6 billion, with high-end products accounting for over 40%. AI servers and high-performance computing ( HPC) will become the core sources of growth.
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High technical barriers and prominent process bottlenecks
High-end PCB manufacturing faces multiple technical challenges.
High-Density Interconnect (HDI) technology has become key to breaking through capacity bottlenecks, with micro-hole stacking technology being particularly critical.
MSAP (semi-additive process) faces core challenges in the precision filling technology during the electroplating stage. With advancements in chip manufacturing and packaging technology, the industry is pushing for the commercialization of CoWoP. The hole diameter of such boards is reduced, and the hole density significantly increases, leading to thinner and longer holes, making copper plating inside the holes a core technical challenge.
“High-end products require high-precision lamination, laser drilling, and other processes, which only a few manufacturers globally can provide, resulting in a short-term supply-demand gap for high-end products,” Xie Shuqin analyzed.
By 2025, the global PCB equipment market is expected to reach $7.7 billion, with drilling equipment accounting for 21% (the highest value), and electroplating equipment’s share increasing to 7% due to the demand from MSAP.
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Accelerated domestic substitution, leading equipment manufacturers break through
In the high-end materials sector, Chinese companies are accelerating breakthroughs. Copper-clad laminate companies like Shengyi Technology are rapidly replacing high-frequency and high-speed substrates domestically, breaking the overseas monopoly on AI server ultra-low loss materials and 6G high-frequency boards.
High-end materials such as ABF films and high-frequency copper-clad laminates have a domestic substitution rate of less than 20%, but with policy support, it is expected to rise to 45% by 2026.
Domestic substitution in equipment is also accelerating. CICC’s research report points out: “Due to limited production capacity of foreign high-end equipment, the current round of capital expenditure in AI PCBs has generated spillover effects, providing opportunities for domestic equipment leaders to iterate through trial and error.”
Dongwei Technology has made breakthroughs in filling electroplating equipment, with orders increasing by over 80% quarter-on-quarter. Demand for laser direct imaging ( LDI) equipment has surged by 180% year-on-year, with domestic manufacturers accelerating market share growth through trial and error iterations.
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Industry structure reconstruction, pyramid structure formation
The current PCB market presents a binary structure of “high-end scarcity and low-end pressure.” Leading companies dominate the high-end market through technological positioning, while small and medium-sized enterprises focus on the mid-to-low-end consumer electronics sector.
Huadian Co., Ltd. AI server PCB revenue accounted for 29.5%, an increase of 8.35 percentage points year-on-year. The trend of increasing industry concentration is evident, forming a pyramid structure.
“Intensive investment by enterprises will accelerate the expansion of the high-end PCB industry scale and the formation of agglomeration effects, while enhancing the technical level and international discourse power of enterprises,” said Yuan Shuai, Deputy Secretary-General of the Zhongguancun Internet of Things Industry Alliance.
The industry’s vertical integration capability has become a core competitiveness. Collaboration across the supply chain from copper-clad laminates to packaging substrates is increasingly critical, such as Huadian Co., Ltd. collaborating with chip manufacturers to develop customized modules.
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Capital expenditure surges with a wave of expansion worth billions
In 2025, the capital expenditure in the PCB industry is expected to increase by over 40% year-on-year, with several leading companies making significant investments:
Dongshan Precision: $350 million investment in Hong Kong projects + $1 billion new project construction
Huadian Co., Ltd.: 4.3 billion yuan AI chip supporting project
Si Hui Fu Shi: 3 billion yuan high-reliability circuit board project
Pengding Holdings: 5 billion yuan capital expenditure directed towards high-end HDI and SLP projects
The expansion focuses on three major areas: ABF substrates, automotive millimeter-wave and power module boards, and capacity layout in Southeast Asia. Among them, the expansion of capacity in Southeast Asia has become a strategic choice for companies to avoid trade barriers.
What are the emerging growth points? — Automotive and humanoid robots are rising!
In addition to AI servers, new energy vehicles and humanoid robots have become new growth poles for high-end PCBs.
The intelligence of new energy vehicles drives the value of PCBs per vehicle to multiply, reaching 3-5 times that of traditional models. Millimeter-wave radar, intelligent cockpit domain controllers, and others drive a surge in demand for HDI boards.
The humanoid robot market is rapidly emerging. The new projects of Si Hui Fu Shi focus on emerging markets such as AI, intelligent driving, and humanoid robots. Shiyun Circuit has entered the supply chain of several mainstream humanoid robot manufacturers, obtaining exclusive or primary supplier status.
Shiyun Circuit, as a core supplier of Tesla’s Dojo 2 chip PCB, is expected to bring nearly 2 billion yuan in revenue from related orders next year. At the same time, the company is also a core PCB supplier for Tesla’s autonomous driving chips HW4.0/5.0, which is expected to contribute nearly 1 billion yuan in revenue in the long term.
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Future trends forecast, accelerated technological integration
After 2025, competition in the PCB industry will focus on three major directions: material innovation, scenario deepening, and ecological collaboration.
In terms of materials, breakthroughs in mass production of ABF films and domestic substitution of high-frequency substrates are key points. In terms of scenarios, the demand for high-reliability boards for automotive laser radar and heat dissipation PCBs for computing centers is growing. In terms of ecological collaboration, developing customized modules in collaboration with chip manufacturers will become a trend.
According to CICC analysis, this round of capital expenditure cycle (starting in Q4 2024) may last 3 years, longer than the historical average of 2 years, mainly benefiting from the rigid demand for computing power infrastructure.
Industry forecasts suggest that by 2027, the global HDI board market size is expected to reach $18.5 billion, with China as the largest production base, its high-end capacity share is expected to increase from the current 35% to 50%, becoming a key force in setting technical standards.
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Conclusion
Companies with cross-scenario technical capabilities will dominate the global $78.6 billion PCB market. Shiyun Circuit, as a supplier of Tesla’s Dojo 2 chip and NVIDIA’s GB300, is expected to bring over 3 billion yuan in revenue from just these two projects next year.
With the release of capacity in Southeast Asia and the commissioning of new high-frequency copper-clad laminate production lines, the supply-demand contradiction for high-end PCBs may ease. However, continuous technological iteration creates new demands—Intel’s next-generation Birch Stream platform requires more advanced PCB products.
In the wave of AI reconstructing the electronic industrial infrastructure, Chinese companies mastering core processes are transitioning from being supply chain participants to “performance enablers.”
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