The Server & HPC Report provides structured analysis of data center infrastructure, AI servers, cloud computing, and high-performance computing technologies. Coverage includes server platforms, processors, accelerators, networking technologies, and storage systems supporting next-generation computing workloads.
The report examines market developments driven by generative AI, hyperscale cloud providers, enterprise digital transformation, and advanced computing requirements. It serves as a practical reference for tracking technology innovation, market demand, and ecosystem evolution across the server and HPC landscape.
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Huakun deepens server cooperation with Huawei, with clients already in ASEAN, Central Asia, and South Asia. The company targets overseas growth through on-premise AI applications.
XFusion's server export value in 2025 saw a yearly growth of 30%, with three major export routes targeting the ASEAN, African, and Latin American markets.
CPU computing power plays a key role in AI, with Global server shipments in 2026 expected to see a significant yearly growth of 19.2%.
Under the AI boom, microLED optical communication is expected to become a key opportunity for the display industry's transformation.
Agentic AI drives general server demand; global server shipments to top five million units in the second quarter of 2026.
Government policies drive China's chip autonomy; 2026 Chinese cloud AI accelerator shipments to top 2.12 million units, with Huawei taking over 50%.
Cloud business revenue enters a critical moment of accelerated growth; the top-4 CSPs revise their 2026 capex upwards to US$660 billion.
Chinese top-3 server exporter, the New H3C, is seeing server export value expand, leveraging two major export routes to target ASEAN and Central Asian markets.
General-purpose server demand on the rise in 2026; continuous memory cost increases expected to drive CXL demand.
Rack-level delivery becomes a mainstream trend in cloud AI compute; MediaTek joins TPU design, influencing Taiwan's IC design status.
Global server shipments are expected to grow over 10% on year in the first quarter of 2026 as both cloud service providers and server brands are enjoying robust demand from customers.
Liquid cooling demand drives containerized data center development; 2026 AI server liquid cooling penetration rate expected to exceed 50%.
Two-phase liquid cooling technology is gaining visibility, and there is a simultaneous rise in the deployment of liquid cooling patents.
CXL officially enters a restart phase, with the interconnect tech expected to achieve a 90% penetration rate in new server models by 2028.
Cloud service providers' procurement surges with global server shipments expected to rise 8% quarter-on-quarter in the third quarter of 2025 and exceed four million units in the fourth quarter.
The global server shipments are projected to have a CAGR of approximately 5% from 2025 to 2030, with AI demand driving technological innovation.
Cloud service providers turn conservative, while server brand vendors are expected to rebound in third-quarter-2025 shipments, resulting in overall global server shipments estimated to pick up by 1.1% quarter-over-quarter in the third quarter of 2025.
Global AI server shipments are expected to reach 1.81 million units in 2025, with high-end models no longer concentrated among the four major US CSPs.
Anticipation of tariff increases has prompted server players to actively build inventories with global server shipments projected to grow by 1.8% quarter-over-quarter in the second quarter of 2025.
Trump's reciprocal tariffs challenge the resilience of the server supply chain;
Mexico temporarily becomes a safe haven for Taiwanese EMS providers.
The server industry faces US reciprocal tariffs with ASEAN factories to be impacted the most outside of Singapore; relocating high-margin assembly plants to the US is relatively feasible in the short term, but in the long term, the supply chain is expected to become more regionalized.
Competition for AI hardware deployment is showing no sign of resting with Taiwanese ODMs' server-related business revenues expected to surge 50% on year in 2025.
Global server shipments are set to grow 2.3% on year in 2025, thanks primarily to investments from US-based cloud service providers.
Global server shipments performed better than expected in the fourth quarter of 2024 and will only decline mildly from a quarter ago in the first quarter of 2025.
Global server shipments will see a six-year CAGR of 4% from 2024-2029 with AI servers playing a key role.
With generative AI raising data centers' overall power consumption and risk of power outages, OCP is pushing to equip BBUs in high-end servers to ease the problems.
Nvidia established a well-rounded ecosystem via NVLink, and the technology's scalability on systems become the development key for AI computing.
Liquid cooling will become common for AI servers in 2025 and Taiwanese supply chain makers are prepared thanks to their long years of experience.
Global server shipments rose 4.3% sequentially in the third quarter of 2024, but may decline in the fourth quarter as demand stays fuzzy.
Server ODMs are strengthening their deployment in the field of liquid cooling with the ability to bear the risk of leakage expected to reshape the supply chain ecosystem.
Global server shipments up over 7% sequentially in the second quarter of 2024 with growth in the third quarter continuing to be driven by CSPs.
Global high-end AI server shipments to soar 183% from a year ago in 2024 with the related supply chain all gearing up for the opportunity.
Global server shipments slid slightly from a quarter ago in the first quarter of 2024 and will rise around 2% both sequentially and on-yearly in the second quarter.
As air cooling grew insufficient for the heat dissipation of datacenters when running AI applications, L2A and L2L cooling methods are likely to see rising penetration to datacenters in the upcoming years.
Taiwan server industry experienced a decline in 2023 revenues and shipments, but is poised to see growth in 2024.
After a double-digit on-year decline in 2023, global server shipments are expected to resume growth in 2024, but the volumes will fall back to slightly above the 2019 level.
Global server shipments are expected to rise at a CAGR of 6% from 2023-2028, according to DIGITIMES Research's latest findings.
DIGITIMES Research expects 3D VC to become mainstream air cooling solutions for servers in 2024-2025.
Based on DIGITIMES Research's statistics, fourth-quarter 2023 global server shipments grew 3.1% from the prior quarter, coming somewhat short of expectation.
Global server shipments increased 1.5% quarter-over-quarter in third-quarter 2023 and will rise further by 3.8% in the fourth quarter
The three primary high performance computing (HPC) chip suppliers, Intel, AMD, and Nvidia, all experienced lackluster sales in the first half of 2023 amid weak demand for HPC applications, according to a survey of DIGITIMES Research.
In response to explosive generative AI and large language model (LLM) demand, major cloud service providers and leading server brands are stepping up efforts toward AI servers, with a focus on ramping up their procurement of high-end AI servers featuring accelerators with high bandwidth memory (HBM) integrated.
Global server shipments slipped 5.7% sequentially in the second quarter and are likely to see only single-digit on-quarter growth in the third quarter due to brand vendors and CSPs both turning conservative toward the second half of the year, even though the new mainstream server CPU platforms are ready for supply.
Demand for generative AI (Gen AI) and large language model (LLM) is rising rapidly, driven by the emergence of ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by OpenAI. For their large scale as well as the massive data sets and resources required to train LLMs, cloud service providers (CSP) are generally adopting the method of combining inference and prompt engineering for their AI solutions to support clients' customization needs.
Computex 2023 was hosted at Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center from May 30 through June 2 and DIGITIMES Research paid a visit to the show to survey and outline the trends that new AI servers showcased at the event feature including the increasing popularity of models powered by Nvidia's HGX H100 among the suppliers; AI servers with PCIe support trending toward high-density and high-application-flexibility development; servers powered by Nvidia's GH200 boasting the best performance running Nvidia's Large Language Model (LLM) and Nvidia's release of MGX reference server designs.
Global server shipments performed weaker than DIGITIMES Research had anticipated, slipping 13.8% sequentially to fall below four million units. Having a lower comparison base in the same quarter a year ago and the fact that brand vendors are expected to begin volume shipments of servers with new CPU platforms, overall server shipments are expected to witness a low single-digit sequential growth in the second quarter of 2023.
Fourth-quarter 2022 global server shipments declined 7.1% from the prior quarter and 4.3% from the prior year and the volumes are expected to decline further by over 10% both on-quarterly and on-yearly in the first quarter of 2023
Taiwan-based manufacturers' combined 2022 server-related revenue is estimated to have grown nearly 16% to amount to NT$2.12 trillion, but in 2023, the amount will rise only 6.4% amid the weak global economy.
Amid a weak global economy, server brands and China-based server vendors will only have limited shipment growth in 2023 while cloud services providers will expand their data centers on a smaller scale compared to 2022.
Global server shipments went up 4.3% sequentially in the third quarter of 2022 due to rising demand from public cloud services providers and server brand vendors as well as ODMs' deferred orders from the previous quarter.
Digitimes Research forecasts a 5.2% increase in 2023 global server shipments, mainly driven by large US-based cloud service providers actively expanding their datacenter infrastructure. On top of that, the IC and component supply will gradually return to normal with COVID-19 becoming like the flu and Intel as well as AMD producing new-generation CPUs in volume is expected to spur some upgrade demand.
According to Digitimes Research's statistics and analyses, as China responded to COVID-19 resurgences with strict lockdown measures, which disrupted supply chain operations, and manufacturers still struggled with the problem of ICs and components having mixed levels of shortages, second-quarter 2022 global server shipments exhibited a 3.3% sequential growth, falling short of the forecast of nearly 9% growth given in April.
Processor suppliers Intel, AMD and Nvidia as well as server vendors QCT, Ingrasys, Gigabyte, Supermicro and Tyan had demonstrated their new offerings via hosting events themselves or participating in major international exhibitions such as Computex 2022 and ISC 2022 during the first half of 2022.
In first-quarter 2022, server manufacturers still struggled with the problem of some low-end ICs being in worse shortage than others and the Lunar New Year holidays slowed down their shipment momentum.
Fourth-quarter 2021 global server shipments grew 2.9% sequentially. IC and component shortages continue to haunt the server industry in the first quarter of 2022.
Taiwan-based makers' server-related revenues grew 7.1% on year to reach NT$1.65 trillion in 2021, outperforming that of shipments, which was only 4.5%.
Taiwan-based manufacturers' revenues generated from server-related businesses including motherboards, complete systems as well as network communication and storage hardware and software are estimated to have grown 7.1% year-over-year to reach NT$1.65 trillion in 2021.
According to Digitimes Research's statistics and analyses, the 2021 global server market has a supply-demand gap as large cloud service operators step up orders to meet the pandemic-driven demand for cloud services, WFH and online services but the IC and component shortage disrupts shipment schedules.
Third-quarter global server shipments only increased 8.5% from the prior quarter due to some ICs and components being in worse shortage than the others.
Large datacenter demand will remain the main growth driver for server shipments 2021 through 2026. On top of that, 5G white-box telecom datacenter demand will also spur some growth. Along with IC and component supply gradually returning to normal levels, global server shipments are projected to grow at a CAGR of 6.9%.
Global server shipments grew only 9.2% sequentially in the second quarter of 2021.
First-quarter 2021 global server shipments amounted to 3.78 million units, down only 1.6% quarter-over-quarter and up 5.2% year-over-year.
Fourth-quarter 2020 global server shipments amounted to 3.84 million units, down 9.6% quarter-over-quarter but up 12.6% year-over-year.
Taiwan-based makers' server-related revenues are expected to climb 7.6% on year in 2021, buoyed by growing demand from cloud service operators, while global server shipments will pick up 5.6% on year.
Global server shipments, after reaching the peak of 2020 in the second quarter, are estimated to have slipped 6% sequentially in the third quarter as demand began to turn weak and will drop further in the fourth quarter.
Global server shipments are expected to see a CAGR of 6.7% from 2020-2025, driven by demand for datacenter, HPC, AI and 5G related applications.
Second-quarter 2020 global server shipments enjoyed a strong growth thanks to soaring demand for cloud computing services and from the work-from-home (WFH) segment in addition to shipments deferred from the prior quarter and early inventory preparation to cope with the resurgence of the coronavirus outbreak.
According to Digitimes Research's statistics and analyses, first-quarter 2020 global server shipments are estimated to come to 3.65 million units, representing a 16.9% on-quarter drop.
Global server shipments went up 13.4% sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2019 thanks to rising demand from US large datacenter companies and China's server market. However, shipments in the first quarter of 2020 are expected to be affected by China's coronavirus outbreak.
Digitimes Research estimates that global server shipments moderately declined 1.4% in 2019 but will turn to show positive growth of 6.6% in 2020, totaling 16.01 million units.
Global server shipments grew 11.2% sequentially in third-quarter 2019 with inventory depletion that began from the second-half 2018 to first- and second-quarter 2019 coming to an end.
According to Digitimes Research's observation, the server market is experiencing sluggish growth in 2019 with customer inventory level running high. However, as inventory depletion comes to an end, businesses continue to engage in digital transformation, AI applications become more and more popular and cloud service operators aggressively promote hybrid cloud, global server shipments are expected to grow 5% in 2020, and the growth momentum can sustain for the medium to long term.
Global server shipments are expected to increase 12.8% sequentially in the third quarter of 2019 with a flat on-year performance.
Global server shipments amounted to 3.26 million units in first-quarter 2019, down 10.7% compared to the prior quarter and 9.4% to the corresponding period of 2018.
According to Digitimes Research's statistics and analyses, as previously forecast, weakening demand, delayed transition to new platforms and high levels of first-half 2018 shipments resulted in a decline in global server shipments in fourth-quarter 2018.
According to Digitimes Research statistics and analyses, Taiwan-based server vendors, including suppliers of motherboards, end systems, storage devices and related network equipment, continue to enjoy growth in 2018. In terms of volume, global server shipments will show continuing growth throughout 2018 and 2019.
According to Digitimes Research statistics and analyses, third-quarter 2018 global server shipments totaled 4 million units (calculated based on motherboard quantity), showing only a moderate quarter-over-quarter growth rather than a large increase as previously anticipated.
According to Digitimes Research's study on the trend of server shipments over the next five years, global server shipments will grow better than before.
Worldwide server shipments arrived at 3.84 million units in the second quarter of 2018, better than originally estimated, with a sequential increase of 9.6%.
Digitimes Research figures show that global server shipments totaled 3.4 million units (calculated based on motherboards) in first-quarter 2018, registering only a mild drop, thanks to weak seasonal impact during the traditional low season. Looking forward into second-quarter 2018, global server shipments are expected to show a 9% sequential increase with the market entering high season.
Worldwide server shipments reached 3.66 million units (based on motherboards shipped) in the fourth quarter of 2017, accounting for more than a quarter of the annual volumes in 2017 mainly thanks to peak season effect.