TrendForce: AI Inference Demand Extends High-Capacity MLCC Shortage to H1 2027; Murata Expansion Delayed Until 2028
TrendForce forecasts that shipments of new NVIDIA and AMD chips will keep high-capacity MLCC supply tight through H1 2027. Murata admits current capacity is insufficient, with new production lines not ready until after 2028.
Market research firm TrendForce reports that as AI applications shift from model training to inference and AI agents, demand for CPUs is rising. Since each CPU requires power modules and DDR5 memory, the usage of high-capacity Multi-Layer Ceramic Capacitors (MLCCs) around motherboards has doubled, leading to particularly tight supply.
With NVIDIA's Vera Rubin platform ramping up shipments in Q4 2026 and AMD's MI450 starting to pull high-capacity specialized components, ODMs expect Q1 and Q2 2027 to be the peak of the high-end MLCC shortage. TrendForce estimates this gap will persist into the first half of 2027.
Meanwhile, Japanese electronic component manufacturer Murata admitted that current capacity is "far from sufficient" and plans to accelerate expansion, but new capacity will not come online until after 2028. This indicates that short-term supply bottlenecks are difficult to alleviate, leaving pricing power with sellers.
In contrast, AI applications occupying production capacity have driven up prices for memory and other components, suppressing consumer electronics demand due to higher end-user prices. Surveys show that predicted order volumes for major laptop ODMs in Q4 2026 fell by an average of 10-15% year-over-year, while smartphone brands also reduced shipments of mid-to-low-end models.