The AI hardware rush reaches circuit boards and leaves PC makers short heading into 2027

According to TechSpot, citing a report by Nikkei Asia, the shortage driven by AI data center demand has now reached a very basic component: the printed circuit boards (PCBs) on which chips are mounted. For much of this year, PC makers have had to fight for memory and graphics chips; now the boards that hold them are also in short supply.

The mechanism is simple. The same factories that make boards for PCs are busy with far more expensive boards for AI servers, pushing PC orders to the back of the queue. A high-end AI server board can stack dozens of layers of low-loss laminate and special glass fabric, so it consumes much more material and factory time than a desktop motherboard. Major cloud providers are willing to pay for that difference: Amazon, for example, bought a stake worth about NT$1.59 billion in Taiwanese board maker Gold Circuit Electronics in September.

According to the article, executives at HP and Dell have begun to worry about whether they will be able to secure enough boards as they plan their 2027 lineups. An executive at a U.S. PC maker said that even though PC shipments could fall again next year, the company still cannot get enough.

The problem starts with the raw material: every board begins as a sheet of copper-clad laminate. A Taiwanese PC maker told Nikkei that this laminate now costs at least 12 times what it did in July. One of the largest laminate suppliers says its order backlog already stretches to 2030, even though it plans to triple capacity by 2028.

Lead times are lengthening accordingly. One board maker said lead times for a large share of its products have doubled, and another said a new order placed today would not arrive until late 2028. New factories will not solve the problem right away either, because there is a shortage of engineers; the race to hire them has reportedly pushed up salaries in the PCB industry by 20% to 30%.

The impact extends beyond the PC world. Canon said this week that the AI-driven shortage of boards and the components mounted on them has been holding back its production since August, and is one of the reasons it expects to lose around ¥90 billion in medical equipment sales this year.

Meanwhile, PC buyers are still paying for earlier shortages. Memory and storage prices have risen all year, to the point that Gartner believes PCs under $500 could disappear by 2028. According to the article, even an RTX 5080 now sells for close to $2,000 at U.S. retailers. Acer's CEO still thinks PC prices could fall in 2027, but, as TechSpot notes, a board ordered today may not even be delivered by then.