{"id":509098,"date":"2026-06-20T05:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T05:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/509098\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T05:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T05:14:09","slug":"tiny-capacitor-huge-demand-the-ai-frenzy-driving-mlcc-prices-higher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/509098\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny capacitor, huge demand: the AI frenzy driving MLCC prices higher"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year, it was memory chips. This year, the hottest commodity in Shenzhen\u2019s Huaqiangbei electronics market is a component no larger than a postage stamp.<\/p>\n

Because these minuscule components are vital for regulating electric currents, global manufacturing lines are scrambling to keep up with skyrocketing demand from AI server clusters and electric vehicles.<\/p>\n

The resulting supply crunch has sent the spot market into overdrive, with prices jumping two- to fourfold since Chinese New Year for high-capacitance MLCCs \u2013 components designed to store and discharge large amounts of electrical energy to support power-hungry processors \u2013 according to a distributor surnamed Wu.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see any signs of prices cooling down,\u201d said Wu, who mainly sells components from Japanese industry leader Murata Manufacturing to fellow traders and secondary distributors.<\/p>\n

\"HuaqiangHuaqiang Electronic World in Shenzhen\u2019s Huaqiangbei district, where traders say demand for MLCCs has surged amid the global AI boom. Photo: Iris Deng<\/p>\n

While high-capacity components are driving demand, the price hikes are hitting the spot market across the board. Some models have surged from 10 yuan per 1,000 units to 40 yuan (US$5.90), Wu said. But while inquiries are flooding his shop, actual transactions remain sluggish as buyers balk at the inflated price tags.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year, it was memory chips. This year, the hottest commodity in Shenzhen\u2019s Huaqiangbei electronics market is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,576,72,114,113,240,61,60,166,43,387,10178,850,80,90,386],"class_list":["post-509098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-asia","tag-business","tag-china","tag-economy","tag-hong-kong","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lifestyle","tag-news","tag-opinion","tag-south-china-morning-post","tag-sport","tag-technology","tag-us","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}