Guosen: AI computing power resonates with terminal innovation, reshaping the high-density connection pattern of PCBs.

Guosen released a research report stating that under the AI cycle drive, PCB is in a long-term trend of rising in quantity, price, and structure. Low- to mid-range products are improving profit through cost transmission, while high-end products are expanding barriers through technological upgrades. In the next two years, the industry chain will enter a new stage of "technology-driven + regional rebalancing." It is recommended to focus on leading enterprises with high-end manufacturing capabilities, overseas delivery layout, and material synergy system. Guosen's main points are as follows: The industry has entered a new cycle driven by AI, with a fundamental shift in demand structure. The construction of AI server clusters has brought about synchronous upgrades in computing power boards, switches, and optical modules, driving both the quantity and unit price of PCBs. As the computing power architecture evolves from GPU servers to orthogonalization and wireless cableization, with shorter signal chains and greater sensitivity to material loss, PCBs become one of the most core interconnectors and power carriers in AI hardware. This cycle of AI is different from the "peak-fall" characteristic of the 5G cycle, but presents a long-term attribute of "continuous penetration driven by technological iteration." The firm believes that AI will become the dominant increment of the PCB industry in the next 3-5 years. The firm estimates that the wired communication PCB market will reach 206.9 billion yuan by 2027, with a CAGR of 20% in the past two years. The tight situation of high-end PCBs is expected to continue until 2027, with global major manufacturers racing to expand production. In the past six months, several A-share PCB listed companies have announced new expansion plans, which are more aggressive than last year's overall plan. From a regional perspective, major PCB manufacturers are accelerating their layout in Southeast Asia, taking over overseas customer demand through new bases in Thailand and Vietnam, while also actively promoting the expansion of domestic high-end production capacity, forming a short-term layout where mainland capacity is responsible for high-end production and research, and overseas factories serve as entry tickets. The firm calculated the production capacity of 10 top A-share PCB manufacturers and 3 overseas PCB manufacturers, and estimated that the total output value of 13 companies in 2027 will reach 186 billion yuan, with a CAGR of 54% from 2025 to 2027. According to the calculation, the global PCB supply-demand gap will be close to 20 billion yuan by 2026, and the supply-demand tension will continue in 2027, but the gap is expected to narrow. Process iteration and material upgrades resonate, accelerating the industry's trend towards high-end. The firm has sorted out several recent technological changes: mSAP technology is rapidly popularizing on AI servers and switches to deal with 10-15 um line width and line spacing; in the long run, server cabinets will evolve towards pseudo-orthogonal architecture, further increasing signal transmission density and imposing stricter requirements on low dielectric, low loss, and low roughness materials. In terms of material systems, electronic fabric is evolving from E-fabric to L/Q fabric, resin systems are upgrading towards low Dk/Df and high Tg, copper foils are generally adopting HVLP3/4 and ultra-thin copper to reduce loss. The firm judges that future high-end boards will show a tripartite iterative feature of "material-process-architecture," driven by AI architecture to increase signal frequency, thereby driving continuous innovation in material systems and manufacturing processes in reverse, resulting in technological and profit differentiation between companies. With the increase in device density, PCB is reshaping the high-density connectivity landscape. GTC 2025 NVIDIA showed a new rack structure concept Kyber, replacing backplane copper cables with PCBs, connecting computing trays rotating 90 and switching trays directly through PCB backplanes with pseudo-orthogonal architecture. In addition, at the AIInfra Summit in September, Vera Rubin CPX also uses a midplane to replace overpasses to address challenges such as limited wiring space and low reliability in the GB series assembly. As Midplane takes on important signal transmission and has high value, the firm expects that a fully equipped VRNVL144 CPX rack, using a single Vera Rubin GPU (excluding CPX), will correspond to a PCB value of 8,000 RMB, and a single GPU of NVL144 without CPX will also have a value of over 5,000 RMB, doubling the value of GB200/300. Risk warning: AI computing investment scale falls short of expectations; PCB expansion pace falls short of expectations; AI server architecture upgrades fall short of expectations.