First-quarter scan of the sci-tech innovation board's PCB sector: over 70% of companies see double growth in revenue and net profit. AI computing power drives expansion of high-end production capacity.

In the wave of AI, there is a strong demand for infrastructure construction, and the printed circuit board (PCB) industry is being pushed to an unprecedented peak. The first quarter report of 2026 showed that the PCB sector of China's A-share Sci-Tech Innovation Board generally experienced high growth in performance: According to data from Caixin StarMine, 17 PCB companies listed on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board had a total revenue exceeding 12.888 billion yuan, with a net profit of over 1.646 billion yuan. Among them, 12 companies achieved double-digit growth in revenue and net profit, accounting for approximately 71% of the total number of companies reporting financial results. It is worth mentioning that six companies, including Shenzhen Xunjiexing Technology Corp. (688655.SH), Shengyi Electronics (688183.SH), Guangdong Jiayuan Technology (688388.SH), Nanya New Material Technology (688519.SH), Hefei I-TEK OptoElectronics (688610.SH), and Sichuan Huafeng Technology (688629.SH), achieved revenue growth of over 50%; while three companies, Shareate Tools Ltd (688257.SH), OKE Precision Cutting Tools (688308.SH), and Circuit Fabology Microelectronics Equipment (688630.SH), saw their revenue double in the first quarter, leading the race. Despite the high growth in the AI industry, the PCB industry has seen a surge in high-end production capacity expansion, with many leading companies investing billions in intensive development of high-end production capacity projects. This has raised concerns in the market: will the PCB industry bid farewell to the boom phase of simultaneous growth in quantity and price, and instead fall into intense competition and price undercutting if the new production capacity concentrated in post-2026 is released and the growth rate of AI-related terminal demand falls short of expectations? High-end products as the key to profit growth Overall, the PCB industry has continued to thrive in recent times. Companies in the PCB industry chain have shown impressive business performance in this wave of AI. Nanya New Material Technology, Guangdong Jiayuan Technology, Shareate Tools Ltd, and Shengyi Electronics, four companies, had revenues of over 1 billion yuan in the first quarter of this year. Specifically, in the first quarter of 2026, Nanya New Material Technology achieved operating income of 2.411 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 52.62%; net profit attributable to shareholders was 445 million yuan, an increase of 122.16% year-on-year. During the same period, Guangdong Jiayuan Technology achieved operating income of 3.445 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 73.94%; net profit attributable to shareholders was 121 million yuan, an increase of 392.77%; non-GAAP net profit was 109 million yuan, an increase of 1208.18%. The company's single-quarter profit was more than double that of the entire previous year. More noteworthy are some "dark horses of growth." In the first quarter of 2026, OKE Precision Cutting Tools saw a 113.49% surge in revenue and a staggering 2560.71% increase in net profit. During the same period, Shareate Tools Ltd and Circuit Fabology Microelectronics Equipment ranked at the forefront of the sector with revenue growth rates of 111.57% and 112.48% and net profit growth rates of 576.15% and 108.98%, respectively. PCB products can be subdivided into rigid boards, flexible boards, metal substrates, HDI boards, and packaging substrates, among other categories. High-end PCB products, such as HDI boards and packaging substrates, are widely used in high-end consumer electronics, servers, and chip industries. The core engine of this industry's high growth in this round can be attributed to the surge in demand for AI servers. Compared to traditional servers, AI servers (especially GPU servers) have high requirements for PCBs, with significant technical disparities between the high-order HDI required for AI servers and the HDI needed for consumer electronics and ordinary automotive electronics. Due to the significant differences in the proportion of high-end products' revenue and product structures among various companies, there is a significant differentiation in profit growth within the PCB sector. The performance gap is mainly due to the product structure, production capacity, and timing of high-end product layouts of listed companies. Companies that accurately target the high-end PCB market demand tend to achieve more pronounced growth in performance. In the first quarter of 2026, nine PCB concept stocks saw net profit growth of over 100%. Among them, OKE Precision Cutting Tools stood out with a growth rate of 2560.71%, while Nanya New Material Technology, Shareate Tools Ltd, and Guangdong Jiayuan Technology achieved growth rates of 610.8%, 576.15%, and 392.8%, respectively. In terms of research and development investment levels, in the first quarter of 2026, Sichuan Huafeng Technology, Nanya New Material Technology, Shareate Tools Ltd, and Circuit Fabology Microelectronics Equipment recorded year-on-year growth rates of 78.8%, 66.1%, 58.5%, and 56.44%, respectively, positioning them in the top tier; while Kunshan Dongwei Technology, Guangzhou Fangbang Electronics, and others saw growth rates of over 40%, all higher than the industry average of 8.7%. For example, in the first quarter of 2026, Sichuan Huafeng Technology achieved operating income of 633 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 56.15%; net profit attributable to shareholders was 105 million yuan, an increase of 230.43%; non-GAAP net profit was 97.499 million yuan, an increase of 322.95%; basic earnings per share were 0.23 yuan/share, an increase of 228.57%. Many core indicators achieved high-speed growth. In terms of research and innovation, in the first quarter, Sichuan Huafeng Technology invested a total of 47.4553 million yuan in research and development, focusing on two core directions: high-speed transmission and system integration. Shengyi Electronics, a leading PCB company, invested 126 million yuan in research and development in the first quarter, with a year-on-year growth rate of 38.4%. Shengyi Electronics' annual report for 2025 showed that the company achieved operating income of 9.494 billion yuan in 2025, an increase of 102.57% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 1.473 billion yuan, an increase of 343.76% year-on-year. In 2025, the company accelerated the landing of high-end product production capacity for AI servers, OAM, UBB, among others, and achieved large-scale production. Revenue from AI computing-related products increased by 242%. Huajin Securities stated that the recovery of downstream demand has driven the rise in upstream raw material prices, and they are optimistic about the development of the AI-PCB industry chain. General artificial intelligence will become a major driver of technology in the next decade, boosting the growth of computing power and driving the entire semiconductor industry chain upwards. Aijian Securities stated that the growth in demand for AI data center optoelectronic modules is driving the expansion of InP epitaxial wafers, boosting the demand for MOCVD equipment, and leading to an upwards transmission of the industry chain's vitality, benefiting PCB equipment, semiconductor equipment, and related manufacturing processes. AI computing power drives the expansion of high-end PCB production capacity In response to the surge in market orders, leading manufacturers are accelerating the expansion of high-end production capacity, while new companies are entering the high-end arena, and the entire industry is tilting resources towards the development of AI-specific PCB products. This wave of expansion has raised concerns in the market about the intensification of future industry competition and the overall decline in profit capacity. A journalist from the "Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily" summarized company announcements and public information, and found that leading PCB manufacturers have initiated plans to expand production capacity for high-end products. On November 17, 2025, Shengyi Electronics announced a private placement plan to raise 2.5 billion yuan to build core production capacity for AI computing power and establish a solid competition barrier in the medium to high-end market. The funds raised will mainly be used for two projects: The Dongguan Artificial Intelligence Computing HDI Production Base with a total investment of 2.032 billion yuan, of which 1 billion yuan will be used from the private placement to build a high-end HDI board with an annual production capacity of 167,200 square meters; and the Ji'an Intelligent Manufacturing High Multi-layer AI Circuit Board project with a total investment of 1.937 billion yuan, of which 1.1 billion yuan will be used from the private placement to produce 700,000 square meters of high multi-layer boards annually after reaching full production. These two projects are well suited to the needs of AI servers and data center hardware, filling the gap in high-end production capacity for the company. In March of this year, Shareate Tools Ltd, which plans to acquire the target company Huilian Electronics, announced that to respond quickly to the urgent demand for high-end PCB drills in the market, Huilian Electronics is accelerating its production capacity layout. Currently, construction is progressing orderly at the two major bases in Xinxiang, Henan, and Xiamen, with the installation and debugging of self-made equipment such as sintering furnaces, grinders, and coating equipment, among others, being carried out steadily, with some production lines already entering trial production. It is reported that the company plans to achieve a production capacity of 20 million PCB drills per month by the end of this year, increase it to 50 million per month in 2027, and further increase it to 100 million per month by 2028. Nanya New Material Technology announced on the evening of April 2 that its 2025 annual private placement application has been accepted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The company plans to raise no more than 900 million yuan, mainly for the research and development and construction of high-frequency, high-speed copper-clad boards for high-level AI computing power. According to the announcement, the project will have a construction period of 24 months and will have an annual production capacity of 7.2 million high-frequency, high-speed copper-clad boards and 16 million meters of bonding sheets. The high-speed connectors engaged by Sichuan Huafeng Technology belong to downstream supporting products of PCBs. In response to the current wave of expansion in the industry, on April 15 this year, Sichuan Huafeng Technology stated during an institutional research call that with the growth in AI computing power demand and the expansion of the market size, the number of industry entrants is expected to continue to increase. However, the high technical barriers of high-speed line module technology - where product performance directly determines the core operation performance of servers, with stringent industry reliability standards and cautious scrutiny in downstream customer supplier entry - mean that manufacturers need to undergo lengthy product testing and qualification validation before entering the supply chain system. This wave of PCB expansion is being driven by the explosion in demand for AI, and changes in demand may become the core variable in the evolution of the competitive landscape of the PCB industry. An analyst in the telecommunications sector at a brokerage firm told a journalist from the "Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily" that if the growth rate of AI cloud services, large model training, and other terminal demands slows down, the vast amount of planned high-end PCB production capacity will be concentrated and released between 2026 and 2027. At that time, the industry's supply and demand situation may reverse, leading to industry price undercutting and continuing to compress corporate profit margins. PCBs are a capital-intensive industry with high fixed costs, and production capacity utilization is the core of enterprise profitability. If utilization rates decline, corporate profits will be directly impacted. The industry-wide large-scale expansion is based on optimistic expectations of long-term high growth in AI computing power demand. While current demand for AI computing power is growing rapidly, sustained high-speed growth may not be sustainable in the long run. The telecommunications industry analyst mentioned above further stated that the construction of AI infrastructure is not linear and infinite in growth, as it will be constrained by factors such as energy supply, the speed of industry application landing, and more. Additionally, in the next two to three years, the development logic of the high-end PCB industry will shift from quantity-based expansion competition to quality-based competition upgrade. The core of future industry competition will focus on technological iteration capability, customer stickiness, and overall support service levels.