PCB and Chip Substrate Shortage: Why AI Servers Are Squeezing HP, Dell and Your Next PC

AI data centers have already tied up memory, GPUs and advanced packaging. Now a more mundane part is joining the list. Nikkei Asia reports, citing industry insiders, that as executives at PC makers including HP and Dell map their 2027 supply needs, printed circuit boards (PCBs) and chip substrates have emerged as an unlikely concern because AI demand is eating up production capacity.

We could not open the Nikkei piece, which is paywalled, so this post leans on the Techmeme summary of it and on trade reporting about the same shortage, namely Electronics Weekly and Evertiq. It continues our coverage of the broader memory shortage and of Nvidia paying suppliers for AI packaging.

TL;DR: what is reported, and by whom

Why a circuit board is now a bottleneck

A PCB is the board that holds and wires chips together; a chip substrate is the small, very fine board a processor or accelerator package sits on. Both are unglamorous, and both are made by a different set of companies than the chipmakers who dominate AI headlines.

AI hardware pulls on both. Evertiq's interviewee, Didrik Bech of PCB supplier Confidee, estimated a typical AI server rack contains up to 10,000 PCB assemblies, including 20- to 40-layer multilayer boards. Advanced boards need roughly four times more raw material than standard boards, so manufacturers shift capacity to AI work "at the expense of industrial, automotive, and defence customers," as Evertiq summarizes his account. Bech described the first half of 2026 as the most disruptive period he had seen since the dot-com crash. That is one executive's characterization, not an industry-wide measurement.

What the lead times and prices look like

Electronics Weekly's August 12 report lists several data points:

• Epoxy resin lead times rose from three weeks to 15.
• Standard FR-4 lead times went from two to three weeks to six to eight weeks.
• Advanced low-loss laminates take 14 to 18 weeks.
• Copper-clad laminate prices are up 70% year over year in the article, while the India Printed Circuit Association says prices rose more than 300% over the past year.
• Some Chinese manufacturers are quoting 2028 delivery for orders placed the previous month.

The spread between 70% and 300% is a reminder to treat price claims as regional and material-specific. Evertiq adds that factories often learn material cost only after it arrives, which makes quoting hard.

The materials underneath

Two bottlenecks recur in the reporting.

Glass fibre fabric. Bech says only five to seven major producers exist worldwide and he does not expect capacity to grow before late 2027 at the earliest. Separate coverage tied to Nikkei names Nittobo as a key supplier of glass cloth for high-end substrates, struggling to meet AI-driven demand; we could only see that through secondary summaries.

Resin and laminates. Electronics Weekly attributes part of the squeeze to a Saudi petrochemical complex that supplies about 70% of the world's high-purity PPE resin for laminates and has been offline since March because of the Middle East conflict. That is the article's account, and we have not independently verified the plant's status.

Why PC makers worry even though AI chips are the headline

Within one supply chain, high-margin AI boards win allocation. Low-margin consumer motherboards get pushed back, which is the pattern the PC makers reportedly fear for 2027. The Nikkei framing, that a "mundane component" is the new worry, fits that logic. It also echoes what we saw in memory: our mobile DRAM surge and RAM price analyses found AI demand crowding out consumer products.

There is a counterpoint. One trade summary notes that AI servers and high-end networking are booming while smartphones and laptops are comparatively soft. Weak consumer demand could ease competition for supply even as capacity favors AI. We do not know which effect dominates, and none of the sources we read forecast a PC price change.

Capacity is coming, but late

Electronics Weekly says new capacity arrives from late 2026 into 2027 but is already largely pre-allocated to AI customers, with the squeeze expected to last into 2027, especially for non-AI uses. Industry bodies quoted there warned output could fall 30 to 40 percent over three months if supply does not improve, a warning from the Indian industry rather than a global forecast. Elsewhere, Corning's results and SK Hynix's HBM4 ramp show the same dynamic across optics and memory: suppliers say demand outruns capacity for years.

Policy and geography: who makes the boards

The shortage also exposes how concentrated board-making is. In the Evertiq interview, Bech says China accounts for nearly 60% of global PCB production, Europe has 182 PCB factories against more than 300 in the US, and Europe has only one copper foil producer, in Luxembourg. He notes that the proposed European Chips Act 2.0 mentions PCBs only once, calling that "better than nothing," and criticizes EU tariffs on imported laminates even though Europe makes few laminates itself. These are one supplier's views, but the factory counts are the kind of fact a reader can check against industry statistics.

In India, Electronics Weekly reports that the Indian Electronics Industries Association and the India Printed Circuit Association have asked the government for temporary support, including import duty exemptions on critical PCB materials, working capital for smaller manufacturers and emergency financial support. That request arrives as India tries to build up domestic electronics manufacturing, which makes the timing awkward: a country trying to grow its board industry is competing for the same scarce laminate and resin.

The defence angle matters too. Bech says defence customers are now more than 40% of Confidee's business and that its defence order intake rose 119% in the first half of 2026 against the first half of 2025. Defence buyers compete with AI buyers for the same advanced boards, so the pressure on consumer electronics is not only AI.

A buyer's checklist for the next 12 months

1. Ask your supplier for the lead time of the specific board. A 20-layer low-loss laminate board and a standard FR-4 board sit on very different curves, six to eight weeks versus 14 to 18 weeks in the Electronics Weekly figures.
2. Check material pass-through clauses. Evertiq reports factories often learn their material cost only after it arrives. If your contract fixes the price, the supplier may push back or delay.
3. Qualify a second source early. Qualification takes months. Bech says his firm sources about 40% of its business outside China, but notes that factories moved to Thailand often still buy raw materials from China.
4. Order the long-lead parts first. Substrates and glass-cloth-dependent boards take longest; commodity parts can follow.
5. Plan for price drift. The sources disagree about how far laminate prices have risen. Budget a range, not a point.

None of this is investment advice or a forecast of retail prices. It is a way to read the trade reporting as a procurement signal.

What is unconfirmed

1. The Nikkei article itself. We rely on a summary for the HP and Dell concern. Neither company is quoted in what we read.
2. A PC price effect. No source gives a number for laptop or desktop prices.
3. Price rises. Figures range from 70% to over 300% depending on source and material.
4. Plant outages. The Saudi resin supply claim comes from one trade article.
5. The AI slowdown risk. Bech called a possible 2027 AI investment slowdown a personal opinion, not a forecast.

What this means for what you build or pay

If you buy workstations or local-AI machines, expect longer lead times and firm prices for boards and parts that are not AI-specific, and buy earlier if you have a 2027 deployment. If you plan on-prem inference, build in slack for delivery dates rather than assuming a quoted week. And if you build hardware, qualify a second board and laminate source now; Evertiq's interviewee reports qualified partners outside China are a hedge, though many suppliers still source materials from China.

Related reading

• Michael Dell: memory shortage could last four years
• Nvidia pays suppliers for AI packaging: claimed vs verified
• Mobile DRAM price surge and AI smartphones
• RAM prices, AI demand and local inference cost
• Corning Q3 2026 AI data center supply chain
• CXMT HBM3E at 20-30% yields: claimed vs verified

Reporting is accurate as of October 28, 2026; supply conditions and figures change quickly.