Taiwanese server original design manufacturers told investors their AI rack backlogs stretch into early 2027, even as U.S. semiconductor shares suffered an eighth straight weekly decline and CoreWeave bonds traded at distressed yields.
Fundamentals versus financing fears
TSMC’s third-quarter revenue hit NT$1.49 trillion with earnings per share of NT$29.43, and management lifted full-year dollar sales growth to about 44 percent while keeping capital spending at US$60–64 billion. For ODMs such as Quanta, Wistron, and Wiwynn, the message is that GPU and ASIC wafers are still scarce even if Wall Street questions how cloud firms will finance builds.
“Customers are not canceling slots; they are arguing over delivery sequence,” a Wiwynn executive said on a Friday call, according to a company transcript. Order books for liquid-cooled racks remain above 90 percent utilization at main Taoyuan plants.
Where the risk shows up
Financing stress appears in second-tier cloud renters, not in the top hyperscalers TSMC highlighted. Shares of Taiwanese power-supply and PCB suppliers fell with the PHLX index, but ODM leaders noted that those vendors still run at full shift thanks to retrofit programs at existing data halls.
Analysts writing in Saturday’s Economic Daily News said this week’s U.S. earnings from Meta, Tesla, and large chipmakers will test whether capex guidance holds. If guidance slips, ODMs could convert some lines back to enterprise servers—a pivot they practiced during the 2023 inventory correction.
Policy tailwinds at home
Taiwan’s National Science and Technology Council continues to map AI risk rules under the Basic Act, but ODMs say export licenses—not domestic regulation—remain the binding constraint on shipping advanced racks to Middle East and Southeast Asia projects. For now, the bottleneck is still components, not paperwork.
Component bottlenecks
Power-supply and busbar vendors report 14-week lead times for 800-volt racks, while liquid-cooling quick connectors remain on allocation through December. ODM procurement chiefs said they are dual-sourcing Taiwanese and Japanese connector brands after a July quality hold delayed 400 racks.
Despite Wall Street jitters, none of the top five cloud capex guides cut 2026 spending during last week’s U.S. conferences, according to a UDN Money roundup published Saturday. That consistency keeps ODM night shifts booked even as their share prices track the PHLX lower.
Quanta executives told investors that liquid-cooling retrofit kits for legacy air-cooled halls remain sold out through Chinese New Year, a side market that did not exist two years ago. Wiwynn added that Middle East customers are requesting on-site technicians for 72-hour burn-in tests before racks ship, extending delivery calendars even when components arrive on time.