Forget about the gleaming new Microsoft CoPilot+ laptops and the latest LED-clad gaming rigs! The real stars of the show at Computex 2024 are set to be AI servers powered by the latest Nvidia Blackwell platform and, to a much lesser extent, the AMD Instinct MI300X accelerators.
The unprecedented surge in the development of generative AI fueled services and applications is of course one reason why huge but relatively anonymous companies like Foxconn, Quanta, Inventec, Wistron, Gigabyte, and Wiwynn that manufacture and assemble the servers and associated baseboards, GPU modules, substrate, chassis, cooling, and other components are suddenly finding themselves in the limelight.
Another factor is that the margins and revenues from AI servers are not only far higher than those that can be made from PC motherboards, systems, notebooks, and related peripherals and components, but are also growing at a significantly faster clip. Gigabyte, for example, was the only major Taiwan PC manufacturer to increase overall revenue in 2023 thanks to the investments it made in boosting its server capacity. In Q1 this year, the company went on to record a year-over-year increase of 97 percent, with Morgan Stanley estimating server sales will account for 47 percent of its overall revenues this year and 57 percent in 2025 compared to 20 percent in 2023.
Not surprisingly, second-tier suppliers like Asrock are also hungrily eyeing the AI server market. As Nvidia H100 production capacity bottlenecks ease and global enterprise demand rises, the company expects triple digit growth server sales during the second half of this year, accounting for at least half of its overall revenues.
With water-cooling and chassis makers like InWin also seeking to enter this growing market, AI servers are sure to steal the spotlight at Computex 2024 and drive a new phase of Taiwan tech industry growth in the years ahead.
