The tiny ceramic parts that keep a GPU’s power rails steady have become the tightest item on an AI server bill of materials. Murata Manufacturing will spend about JPY 1T over the five fiscal years to 2030 to expand multilayer ceramic capacitor output, roughly JPY 350B for buildings and JPY 650B for equipment.
Orders arrived faster than the floor space
President Norio Nakajima told Bloomberg in October that the company had been turning down customer orders for capacitors used in AI servers. Murata holds roughly 40 percent of the global MLCC market and expects MLCC revenue in fiscal 2030 to be at least twice the fiscal 2025 figure of around JPY 900B.
It will add a fourth domestic site. The Setouchi complex in Okayama gets some JPY 150B across two buildings: capacitor fabrication breaks ground in April 2027 and finishes at the end of 2028, with a dielectric materials plant following by 2030. Another factory is planned for Yasugi.
The cheap end of the category is not the problem
Demand is concentrated. Modern accelerators draw hundreds of amperes, so a server board carries tens of thousands of capacitors to absorb switching spikes.
Murata guided capacity growth near 20 percent a year across fiscal 2027 and 2028. A Thai building completes in 2030 and Philippine lines are fitted out by 2027. Operating profit for the year to March 2027 was lifted to JPY 520B from JPY 430B.
Samsung Electro-Mechanics, with about 24 percent of the market, won a $210M AI server capacitor contract in October.
What has not been disclosed is monthly unit output. Murata is expressing the expansion only through revenue targets and annual percentage growth.
