The AI industry continues to gobble up manufacturing resources that were once dedicated to serving PC, smart device, and gadget makers. We’ve seen huge demand/supply driven price rises in RAM, GPUs, SSDs, and more through 2026. Now that most basic and unglamorous electronics necessity, the PCB, looks set to join them. A news report published by Nikkei Asia quotes several leading PC and PCB industry managers, making it clear we are going to see PCB (and PCB subcomponent) shortages and price rises in the coming months.

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[–] 20 points 6 hours ago (3 children)

Wow, it’s just literally anything related to computer and server components now, not just particular specialized components. This fucking sucks.

Is PCBWay pivoting to the “let’s print some money” strategy too, or are they trying to reserve some capacity so as to not completely fuck non-enterprise customers?

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  • [–] 10 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

    More to the point, how is it even possible to cause such a shortage? PCBs aren't even particularly high-tech the way the chips are; a determined enthusiast could make them at home.

    And I don't mean just etching the circuits: I mean you could get some fiberglass, copper foil, and epoxy resin, and laminate your own from scratch.

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