The supply chain is bracing for the fallout of the blacklisting of China-based server manufacturer Inspur Group by the US Department of Commerce on March 3.
Industry sources expect the short-term impacts to be limited, pointing out that current customer shipments are normal. Long-term impacts will require more observation to monitor the implementation scope and details of the ban.
With the blacklisting, companies that want to ship or export technology to Inspur will have to first obtain a license from the US Department of Commerce.
As one of the top three server manufacturers globally, the blacklisting of Inspur not only affects Inspur but companies such as Nvidia, Intel, and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).
According to DIGITIMES Research, Inspur's server motherboard shipments have gradually increased since 2019, reaching 1.12 million units in 2022, while shipments from the world's top two server brands Dell and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) have slid from 2019-2022.
With the rapid increase of AI sever shipments, Inspur's position in the market has changed over the last three years. According to Inspur's 2021 financial report released in April 2022, citing data from IDC, Inspur's market share for AI servers surpassed 20% in the first half of 2021, placing it in the number one position globally. In the overall server market, Inspur ranked second globally and first in China.
Taiwan-based MiTAC Computing Technology (MCT), a subsidiary of MiTAC Holdings, and Wistron are both motherboard suppliers for Inspur. Based on data from DIGITIMES Research, Inspur will account for 61.6% of MCT's shipments in 2023 and 9.7% of Wistron's.
MiTAC does not comment on individual clients but did point out that the server market is related to the overall IT market, noting it will be difficult to maintain good growth in 2023.
The server industry is neither surprised nor pessimistic about Inspur's inclusion on the US blacklist, citing the US's blacklist of Huawei in 2019 as a comparison. After being blacklisted, many US companies applied to trade with Huawei and were approved.
Industry players noted that despite being blacklisted, US chip suppliers and others affected by the ban will apply for supply exemptions. Considering how fast Inspur has been growing over the past few years, no manufacturer will want to lose such a major fast-growing customer.
Article translated by Eifeh Strom
