IPC International Community magazine an association member publication
Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1546209
AUGUST 2026 I I-CONNECT007 MAGAZINE 45 A Closer Look at AI Data Centers In November 2022, OpenAI, a company with fewer than 400 employees, released Chat- GPT as a public research preview. Within five days, more than one million people signed up. Two months later, that number grew to 100 million, making ChatGPT one of the fastest- growing consumer applications in history. By early 2023, following a major investment from Microsoft, OpenAI's valuation climbed to an es- timated $20–29 billion. More importantly, the launch ignited an AI arms race that is reshaping the global technology landscape. AI has since sparked one of the largest in- frastructure buildouts in decades. Around the world, companies are racing to construct a new generation of data centers capable of sup- porting AI workloads that dwarf the comput- ing demands of traditional cloud applications. These facilities are redefining expectations for processing power, memory bandwidth, net- work speed, and power delivery, while driv- ing unprecedented demand throughout the electronics manufacturing supply chain. For the PCB industry, the AI data center rep- resents far more than another high-growth market. It is reshaping design priorities and accelerating innovation in high layer count backplanes, advanced materials, signal in- tegrity, thermal management, and manufac- turing processes. At the same time, the pace of deployment is exposing new challenges, from supply chain constraints and escalating power requirements to the need for greater reliability in increasingly dense, high-perfor- mance systems. In this Special Section, I-Connect007 ex- amines the market forces driving the AI data center, the technologies, like liquid cooling, that enable it, and the opportunities and challenges it presents. SPECIAL SECTION ▼