Jefferies: AI Agents Catalyze Server CPU Demand, PCB and ABF Substrates Face Revaluation
nashnova research
Meta's AI agent app Muse topped the U.S. App Store in just ten days; Jefferies now flags it as a turning point for server CPU demand, projecting the AI PCB market could grow roughly tenfold in five years while ABF substrates expand in parallel.
Muse went viral — why does Jefferies think this is more than just an app?
Meta's AI agent app Muse hit No. 1 on the U.S. iOS free chart within 10 days of launch. Jefferies calls it a landmark in AI's shift from chatbots to consumer-grade agents.
This means → agents are not "smarter chat windows." They orchestrate multiple tasks simultaneously and run continuous inference, consuming far more server resources than a traditional Q&A chatbot.
In plain terms = a chatbot is like a customer-service rep answering one question at a time; an agent is like a personal assistant running errands, researching, and making decisions for you all at once — the server load is a different order of magnitude.
AI PCB market: where does a tenfold increase come from?
Citing Prismark data, Jefferies projects the AI PCB total addressable market will grow from roughly $7 billion in 2025 to roughly $73 billion by 2030 — a five-year CAGR of about 60%.
Growth spans four categories: CPUs, Nvidia accelerators, non-Nvidia accelerators, and switches plus optical modules — the entire infrastructure chain scales up, not just one chip.
This means → PCBs are no longer just "the board under the chip." They are becoming one of the highest-volume, fastest-growing materials in AI infrastructure.
ABF substrates: why are barriers rising?
ABF substrates — a key packaging material that carries high-end chips — are projected to grow from roughly $8 billion in 2025 to roughly $30 billion by 2030, a CAGR of about 30%.
The product roadmap demands larger package sizes, higher layer counts, and more complex designs, putting sustained pressure on yield control and capacity.
This reflects a business where money alone cannot buy scale. Leading suppliers in Japan, Korea, and Europe see their first-mover advantages reinforced as technical difficulty rises — barriers are going up, not down.
ABF expansion is squeezing whom?
Jefferies notes that ABF substrate expansion overlaps with BT substrates — another board material used mainly in mid-to-low-end packaging — in raw materials and equipment.
This means → as capacity and materials shift toward higher-margin ABF substrates, BT substrate supply gets crowded out. Mid-to-low-end packaging may face rising costs or longer lead times.
Can the underlying assumption behind all of this hold?
Jefferies forecasts server CPU shipments rising from roughly 29 million units in 2025 to roughly 75 million units by 2030, spanning general-purpose, AI head-node, and AI standalone deployments.
These shipment figures are the foundational support for the PCB and ABF substrate TAM projections above.
In plain terms = if AI agents keep exploding the way Muse did, CPU demand can sustain this growth curve. If agent adoption falls short of expectations, every link in the logic chain gets discounted.
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