TAIPEI -- As executives at PC makers, including HP and Dell, map out their supply needs for 2027, a mundane component has emerged as an unlikely concern.

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are an unremarkable but essential part of the electronics supply chain, and according to one manager at an American PC maker, "various types of PCBs have become a critical bottleneck in our product planning for next year." "Even though PC shipments could decline again next year, we are still struggling to secure enough PCB supplies to meet our needs," he told Nikkei Asia, requesting anonymity because the information is confidential.

Interviews with multiple industry executives and managers identified PCBs and chip substrates as key supply constraints for consumer electronics manufacturers, including smartphone and computer makers, as artificial intelligence computing demand increasingly eats up available production capacity.

Top AI chip developers Nvidia, Broadcom and AMD now view PCBs and chip substrates as strategic resources they must secure to support their expansion. On Thursday, Nvidia announced partnerships with several major chip substrate makers, including Japan's Ibiden, South Korea's Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Unimicron of Taiwan, aimed at boosting production capacity by 2.5 times over the next three years.

Broadcom has identified advanced chip substrates as a persistent supply chain bottleneck and has formed a joint venture in Singapore with Japan's Toppan to expand supply. Lisa Su, CEO of U.S. processor maker AMD, has visited its chip and PCB suppliers multiple times this year in a push to secure additional capacity.

Like processors and memory chips, PCBs and chip substrates are essential components in virtually all electronic devices, from smartphones and computers to servers and cars, functioning as interconnecting layers for all components to communicate with one another. Yet they have traditionally attracted less attention because they account for a relatively small share of a device's bill of materials and are seen as less high-tech compared to chipmaking and packaging.

But their importance has grown significantly as they have come to play a critical role in determining how efficiently chips are connected, how quickly they communicate with one another and how the overall performance of computing systems is improved.

"Everyone is shifting production capacity toward AI-related products, leaving traditional PCB demand from consumer electronics and notebooks increasingly underserved," a PCB industry manager supplying Nvidia, Intel, Google and others told Nikkei Asia. "Meanwhile, the shortage is not only associated with PCBs but also with materials to build PCBs." S.C. Chien, chairman of Unimicron, a key Nvidia, Google and Broadcom supplier, said the AI wave demanded not only more PCBs and chip substrates but also more layers and a higher density of interconnects inside the boards, along with higher reliability and a higher standard of materials to accommodate ever more demanding AI and networking chips.

"The entire PCB and chip substrate supply chain needs to upgrade its quality and technology to meet increasingly demanding requirements," Chien said. "Just imagine the challenges involved in producing larger substrates with more layers, supporting faster computing speeds and improving heat dissipation."

He added, "Achieving this will require not only efforts from PCB makers themselves, but also much closer collaboration and integration across the entire supply chain." Many industry executives described the developments as a butterfly effect rippling across the supply chain, with disruptions in one segment triggering far-reaching consequences in others. As manufacturers increasingly shift their focus and production capacity toward higher-end materials, PCBs and chip substrates for AI applications, supply gaps are emerging in the traditional consumer electronics market, with few players able to fill the void left behind in products such as PCs and smartphones.

Meanwhile, as companies race to ramp up production of advanced PCBs and chip substrates, the equipment and materials needed to manufacture them are also facing unprecedented supply constraints, creating yet another layer of bottlenecks across the industry.

Unimicron's Chien said lead times for acquiring the equipment needed to make advanced chip substrates and PCBs have lengthened.

"About 20% of the equipment now has lead times doubling from in the past, while lead times for some types of equipment have stretched to as long as 30 months," he said. His team, along with their customers and even their customers' customers, have held multiple meetings and visits to suppliers over the past few months to share a clearer outlook and together solve supply constraints, Chien added. Substrates such as those supplied by Japan's Toppan, pictured, are also in high demand.

Charles Shen, chairman of Zhen Ding Technology, a key Apple and Microsoft PCB supplier, said his company was expanding massively to meet surging demand, but significant constraints remained on multiple upstream materials.

"Some industry executives said materials constraints might ease around 2027 through 2028. However, we really don't see materials [constraints] for making PCBs to ease anytime soon," Shen said.

An executive at a Taiwanese PC company said the consumer electronics industry is finding it harder to secure enough PCBs from now through next year.

"Not just the supplies for PCBs are challenging, the costs for CCLs [copper clad laminate] that is essential to make PCBs, have surged at least 12 times since July," the executive told Nikkei Asia. "Memory chips, CPUs (central processing units), and now PCBs ... the headache for us just gets worse." At Taiwan's annual PCB industry trade show this month, executives and representatives from Apple, Qualcomm HP and leading PCB manufacturers were out in force, meeting key materials and equipment suppliers in the hope of securing additional supplies amid mounting shortages.

Dong Ding-yu, chairman of Elite Materials, the world's leading supplier of CCLs, also critical in making PCBs and chip substrates, said the order visibility for his company already extended to 2030. "We are currently expanding in Taiwan, China and Malaysia, and in Taiwan alone the capacity will grow by triple when it goes online in 2028," he said.

"We really can't make any commitment to guarantee we can fulfill customers' orders," a sales representative for Kinwong Electronic, a supplier to AMD, Nvidia, Bosch and Continental, told Nikkei Asia. "If a new customer wants to make a new order today, our soonest delivery time for the customer would be late 2028 ... that's just how crazy it is now." Even E-glass, a layer of materials needed in standardized PCBs for ordinary consumer electronics, is in short supply, several industry executives said.

The shortage stems partly from glass cloth manufacturers shifting production capacity toward higher-end materials, including low-dielectric-constant (low-Dk) and low-dielectric-loss (low-Df) glass, both increasingly used in AI servers and other advanced computing applications.

Meanwhile, premium T-glass, a market dominated by Japanese supplier Nitto Boseki, better known as Nittobo has long been a critical bottleneck for some of the most advanced chip substrates and PCBs. Japan's Nittobo spins cloth for advanced substrates and PCBs from glass yarn.

"Even major Chinese PCB makers are looking to move up the value chain, shifting their focus toward AI, industrial and server applications. This is leaving many consumer electronics makers struggling to secure supplies," a Unimicron representative told Nikkei Asia.

The PCB boom has also fueled demand for highly skilled engineers, driving up the salaries of specialized talent across the industry. Human resources consultants and industry sources told Nikkei Asia that, on average, PCB industry salaries have risen by about 20% to 30% due to the AI boom. Professionals with experience in printed circuit boards or chip substrates for AI data center servers, along with business development and sales staff serving AI chipmakers and their customers or in quality control and manufacturing operations for high-end products, could enjoy salaries nearly double their previous levels, they said.

"I think AI and the accelerating demand for computing power have, for the first time, elevated PCBs from a traditional, commodity-like industry to something strategically important and essential," said Lee Jung-Kung, general manager of Group Up Industries, a key equipment maker for PCBs and advanced chip packaging.

"In all my years in the industry, this is the first time I have seen such a strong sense of pride and recognition within the PCB sector," Lee said. "There is a growing realization that the PCB industry, and the machinery used to manufacture these boards, play a critical role as fundamental building blocks of the AI era."