Some 60 kilometers north of Bangkok in the old capital of Ayutthaya, China’s Victory Giant Technology is in the hectic final stages of moving new equipment into its newly built printed circuit board (PCB) factory.
Nvidia’s leading supplier of PCB for artificial intelligence servers and graphic cards is on track to have the plant, its second in Thailand, up and running less than a year after acquiring its first one in the Southeast Asian country from Taiwan’s APCB Group.
“VGT has given us a rough forecast for next year already, in which they are likely to order some 100 pieces of new equipment from us to expand its capacity in Thailand and Vietnam,” a manager at Zhuhai Henger Microelectronic Equipment, a Chinese PCB and chip equipment maker, told Nikkei Asia.
Victory Giant’s expansion in Thailand is moving at lightning speed, but fellow peers are rushing to catch up. Many are building their first plants in the country or have recently begun operations there.
Taiwan-based Gold Circuit Electronics, a key PCB supplier for Nvidia’s switch trays, for example, is running its first facility in Thailand at full capacity, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation. Switch trays are components that enable connections between GPUs.
“Any suppliers that are involved in the AI supply chain are leading the formation of the Thailand PCB industry,” said a manager with Ta Liang Technology, a key drilling machine provider that serves all of the top PCB makers.
PCBs are used in everything from phones, cars and data centers to aircraft and defense systems. They are a part of the electronics production process that policymakers often overlook, yet they are just as essential as chips to make modern devices functional.
Nikkei spoke to ten Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese and Thai suppliers ranging from PCB makers to providers of equipment, materials and automation software that have made investments in Thailand, and all of them said AI has become the driving force in the country’s tech manufacturing sector.
Victory Giant, for example, has ridden the AI wave to a market capitalization of more than RMB 233 billion (USD 32.6 billion), far exceeding that of the world’s biggest PCB maker by revenue, Zhen Ding Tech, at TWD 183 billion (USD 6 billion) as of September 1. It is betting on bold overseas expansion to further cement its position in the AI supply chain.
On the flip side, PCB makers less involved in AI, be they established suppliers or newcomers, are in a more “wait-and-see” mode when it comes to expanding capacity in Thailand.
“Automotive-related demand is still relatively soft. … We have secured land but not yet decided when to massively expand the capacity for a new plant,” a manager with Thailand’s biggest local PCB maker, KCE, told Nikkei. KCE specializes in making PCBs for automotive and industrial applications.
The Southeast Asian country is witnessing a once-in-a-generation investment boom as the PCB supply chain shifts from China and Taiwan, a trend that accelerated after then US politician Nancy Pelosi’s unexpected visit to Taipei in the summer of 2022, to which Beijing responded by launching live fire military drills around the self-governed island. The incident underscored the risks of overreliance on Taiwan, a critical production hub for chips and electronics, and gave rise to the so-called Taiwan plus one production strategy amid concerns that Beijing would make good on its implied threat of taking control by force.
Ongoing geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing have only added to the momentum, pushing global tech giants including Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, HP, and Dell to diversify their supply chains and look beyond China for product assembly and critical components.
In less than three years, nearly 60 PCB makers from China and Taiwan have set up new manufacturing footprints in Thailand, including a majority of the top 30 global players, such as Unimicron, Zhen Ding Tech, Shannan Circuits, and Victory Giant. Investments by these companies have also drawn dozens of their own equipment and materials suppliers to the country, where they have established service offices to support their clients.
Thailand has high hopes for this wave of new investment as it seeks to upgrade its industries, including the aim of becoming the world’s second largest hub for producing PCBs after China. While the Trump administration imposed a 19% “reciprocal” tariff on Thailand, the impact on the PCB industry has been limited, as the components are shipped to manufacturing and assembly facilities in Vietnam, India, and elsewhere before being incorporated into final products destined for the US.
Charles Shen, chairman of Zhen Ding Tech, said Thailand’s expansion is a key part of the company’s record capital spending of more than TWD 60 billion for this year and 2026, as it aims to capture the significant growth from AI-related demand.
Unimicron chairman T J Tseng said his company is expanding in Thailand, where it has secured land for up to five plants if demand proves strong. The first wave of products it will make there will include PCBs for satellites and gaming consoles, and Tseng did not rule out the possibility of bringing some of its advanced chip substrate production to the country as well.
The sudden flurry of new PCB suppliers is changing the economic structure in Thailand, bolstering the existing and yet small PCB industry and leveling up the minimum wage for the manufacturing sector. But it is also bringing along new challenges in terms of cultural shock, a talent crunch and intensified competition.
Wichiene Ngamsukkarsemsri, managing director of Mitsubishi Electric Factory Automation Thailand, told Nikkei that there are big cultural differences, especially in working style, between locals and the foreign PCB newcomers. Wichiene said Thai workers are accustomed to a more balanced pace, while Chinese and Taiwanese PCB suppliers tend to be far more aggressive.
“For example, some of the Chinese customers place an order and they would say they need it now. And my people are shocked and saying, ‘No, no, no.’ … I also have a sales team from China, and when they talk to my logistics team, my logistics team also could not adapt at the beginning,” Wichiene said. “This kind of cultural and working style difference requires adjustment if you want to work effectively with the Taiwanese or Chinese PCB clients.”
Another challenge is finding enough engineers, of which Wichiene said Thailand has many in the automotive sector but not in the PCB industry.
John Cronin, a quality manager at Chinese PCB maker WTT Technologies, said engineers and office workers who can speak Chinese are particularly in hot demand in the Thailand PCB industry and that a heated talent war is taking place in the country.
An executive at a local PCB materials maker, meanwhile, told Nikkei that monthly salaries are soaring.
“We are seeing the salary for experienced factory production line managers double just over the past two to three years,” the executive said. “Their salary was only about THB 40,000 (USD 1,240) a few years ago. Now there is a talent war and their salary can be THB 80,000–100,000 (USD 2,480–3,100) a month for experienced ones, and there are serious talent shortages for experienced ones.”
A Chinese executive who works in automation tools for PCB making told Nikkei that personnel costs for production in Thailand are currently about three times higher than they would be in China if account efficiency and all incentives are taken into account. “It’s not that easy to find enough people from China or Taiwan operations who are willing to relocate to Thailand, and the company needs to offer high incentives and subsidies to push this,” the executive said.
Martin Leou, collaboration and business integration advisor to the Thailand Printed Circuit Board Association and an industry veteran with decades of experience in China and Taiwan, said that cultivating sufficient talent is the most critical challenge for Thailand to develop a competitive PCB industry. With government support, the association is establishing a training center to educate and prepare the next generation of talent for the electronics and PCB sectors, Leou said.
“We will build a real production line in the center to provide a true-to-life environment where newcomers or those interested in joining the PCB industry can gain practical skills,” he said. The center will also bring in equipment and materials suppliers to help foster a new ecosystem, according to Leou.
The Industry, Science and Technology International Strategy Center of Taiwan forecasts the production value of PCBs in Thailand will grow from USD 3.5 billion in 2024 to USD 5.62 billion by 2030 with a compound annual growth rate of 7.6%, faster than the global average.
While Thailand is trying to seize the opportunity to become a third PCB hub alongside China and Taiwan, it is far from a given that all of these new investments will be able to bear fruit.
PCB makers, particularly those whose products are non-AI related, are already fighting fiercely for orders amid slowing demand from automotive, industrial and consumer electronics applications, industry people said.
“There are several types of newcomers among PCB makers in Thailand: the ones that brought orders with them, like Victory Giant or GCE, and the ones that come set up a plant first and then fight for orders. … The latter one is creating a heated competition here,” said an executive with a PCB equipment company that serves multiple PCB makers in Thailand.
Several PCB makers and equipment and materials suppliers told Nikkei Asia that despite the nearly 60 new plants in Thailand, the ecosystem remains young and they still need to import most of the equipment and materials needed for production. It will still take years for Thailand’s emerging PCB cluster to go through the necessary learning curve and become stably profitable, they said.
“All of the high-end materials need to be imported, and there are transportation and warehouse costs, labor and different working styles that need to be factored in,” said an executive who has worked in the PCB industry for more than 20 years. “It is very much like in China 20–30 years ago, when the tech supply chain was just beginning to be established.”
Yuan-Sung Chang, a tech analyst specializing in the PCB industry at ISTI, said the institute expects foreign PCB makers in Thailand will gradually increase their production of mid-to-higher end PCBs, which will help the country’s production value to keep growing. But the analyst cautioned that global economic dynamics, geopolitical risks and local infrastructure, including the rise of labor costs, might affect the industry’s development in Thailand.
Chiu Shih-fang, a tech supply chain analyst at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, holds a rather conservative view on Thailand’s current situation. “The outlook of the PCB hub in Thailand is not clear at this moment, mainly due to the uncertain non-AI market demand that might be affected by the US tariff policy,” Chiu said.
The veteran tech analyst added that many of the PCB newcomers have only built one to two production lines in the Southeast Asian country so far. “Whether they will expand into an economic scale of production will largely rely on the improvement of global economics amid the uncertain tariff policy,” the analyst said.
This article first appeared on Nikkei Asia. It has been republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with Nikkei.