AI Server Production Lines Move Nearshore: Taiwan's Direct Export Growth to the U.S. Halved
nashnova research
Taiwan's year-on-year growth in ICT exports to the U.S. dropped from 28% in July to 14.6% in August, as Taiwanese AI-server makers ramp production in the U.S. and Mexico — signaling a structural shift from centralized Taiwan shipments to multi-node nearshore delivery.
Export growth halved — what happened?
Year-on-year growth in Taiwan's ICT and audiovisual exports to the U.S. fell from 28.0% in July to 14.6% in August — nearly cut in half.
A survey by Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs shows overseas production ratios rose sharply in August.
This means → The export slowdown is not a demand problem. It is a delivery-location shift: goods that once shipped from Taiwan now leave factories in the U.S. or Mexico.
Who is moving, and where?
Taiwanese suppliers hold roughly 90% of the global AI-server market. The major ODMs — original design manufacturers that handle everything from design to final assembly for their clients — are expanding aggressively into North America.
Foxconn is building in Houston and multiple Mexican sites. Quanta has plants in Fremont, California, and Nashville, Tennessee. Wistron, Inventec, and Pegatron are each setting up in Texas.
Wiwynn started mass production at its first plant in Socorro, El Paso, Texas, in H1 2026; a second plant is expected online in Q2 2027.
In plain terms = Hyperscale cloud operators keep raising capex. Taiwanese assemblers are planting lines right next to their biggest customers' data centers.
What does moving out mean for Taiwan's supply chain?
Taiwan's local assembly capacity is nearing its ceiling, and the island depends heavily on Korean memory-component imports. Offshore expansion relieves both bottlenecks at once.
This means → Nearshoring is not just a customer-service move — it is a necessary response to Taiwan's own capacity constraints.
The risk is equally clear: as shipment points scatter, Taiwan's pricing power and irreplaceability in the chain may dilute.
Upstream chips still strong — but are orders cooling?
Upstream segments — 12-inch foundry, IC design, and OSAT — remain buoyed by AI and HPC demand. Export volumes and industrial production indices are still growing year-on-year.
Taiwan's manufacturing PMI — a monthly gauge of factory activity where anything above 50 signals expansion — rose to 63.4% in September, driven by longer supplier delivery times and higher inventories.
Yet the forward-looking new-orders index is decelerating. The customer-inventory index has flipped back above 50% after three straight months in undersupply territory.
This reflects a growing time lag between "upstream still rising" and "downstream starting to ease" — a mismatch that often marks the early phase of a cycle turn.
How clear are the cooling signals in electronics?
The electronics and optical-products PMI remains elevated at 62.6%, with new orders expanding for an 11th straight month — but momentum has dropped sharply, with the index falling more than 10 points month-on-month.
The backlog-of-orders index also plunged over 10 points to 54.3%, the slowest expansion since December 2025.
Total inventories climbed to 64.8%; customer inventories rose to 51.0% — the highest since December 2022, meaning clients already have enough stock on hand.
In plain terms = Orders are still growing, but the growth rate is braking hard. Meanwhile, inventories are piling up. This is the textbook opening of a high-level consolidation phase.
What to watch next?
The Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research concludes that underlying AI-hardware demand persists, but the sector is shifting from synchronized high-speed expansion in orders and capacity to a consolidation phase marked by slowing orders, inventory pressure from delivery-time mismatches, and the tail end of an aggressive pricing cycle.
Market analysts are watching closely whether electronic-component price gains are starting to plateau.
This means → Two verification points will determine the next leg: whether nearshore capacity can keep absorbing demand, and when inventory pressure clears. The answers will decide if Taiwan's AI-server supply chain is pausing before another move up — or has already reached a turning point.
市场有风险，内容仅供研究参考，不构成投资建议。