Malaysia has the chips. Vietnam has the assembly lines. But Thailand’s humble circuit boards help keep the AI boom alive
semiconductorsare the silicon rock stars that soak up all the applause. Yet behind the curtain, an unglamorous stagehand is doing much of the heavy lifting.
Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are the copper-laced panels inside every mobile phone, car key fob, digital camera and data-centre server rack on Earth. Without them, even the most advanced AI chip would be useless, unable to process even a single line of code.
Thailand’s scramble for an edge in the global tech supply chain. “They are essential to our daily life. They are in all electronics you are using,” said WellTek founder Jennifer Deng, who established the Thai subsidiary of her China-based Jiangxi Welgao Electronics in Ayutthaya two years ago.
Thailand is now Southeast Asia’s No 1 producer of PCBs – often described as the nervous system of modern electronics, channelling essential signals through increasingly complex arrays of semiconductors, resistors and capacitors – and the fifth largest in the world.