SEMI China: Global Semiconductor Sales Expected to Reach Trillions of Dollars by 2026
SEMI China: Global Semiconductor Sales Expected to Reach Trillions of Dollars by 2026
"We originally predicted that the scale would reach one trillion dollars by 2030. This goal will be achieved ahead of schedule and there is a chance to reach it as early as 2026." At the SEMICON/FPD China 2026 press conference held on March 10th, Feng Li, the president of SEMICON China, stated that under the impetus of AI computing power and the global digital economy, the semiconductor market is undergoing a disruptive change. While achieving a scale breakthrough, there will also be technological innovations and a comprehensive upgrade of the entire ecosystem.
According to the data released by WSTS (World Semiconductor Trade Statistics) in February this year, in 2025, global semiconductor sales will increase by 25.6% year-on-year to 791.7 billion US dollars. It is estimated that in 2026, the global semiconductor market sales will continue to grow strongly, increasing by 26.3% year-on-year and reaching 975 billion US dollars.
Feng Li analyzed the historical data and concluded that it took 13 years for the global semiconductor market to grow from 200 billion US dollars to 300 billion US dollars. It took 4 years for the market to increase from 300 billion US dollars to 400 billion US dollars, and from 400 billion US dollars to 500 billion US dollars. However, it only took 2 years for the market to grow from 500 billion US dollars to 600 billion US dollars, and from 600 billion US dollars to nearly 800 billion US dollars, which was an even faster growth pace.
She summarized three major trends for the semiconductor industry in 2026. Firstly, this year, the computing power of AI will undergo a structural transformation from being dominated by training to a surge in inference. The global expenditure on AI infrastructure is expected to reach 450 billion US dollars in 2026, with the proportion of inference computing power exceeding 70% for the first time. The accelerated expansion of inference scale is translating into an accelerated growth in AI infrastructure expenditure. To build a computing power foundation capable of handling massive demands, more GPUs (display cores or visual processors) are needed to support AI inference, more HBM (high-bandwidth memory) to alleviate bandwidth bottlenecks, and faster networks to connect the computing power. All of these will translate into strong growth drivers for wafer factories, advanced packaging, equipment, and materials.
Secondly, HBM will lead a broadband revolution and a reconfiguration of supply and demand. Storage is the core strategic resource of AI infrastructure. The global storage industry's output value has exceeded 550 billion US dollars, surpassing wafer fabrication for the first time and becoming the top growth driver in the semiconductor sector. Among them, the HBM market size is expected to grow to 5.46 billion US dollars in 2026, accounting for nearly 40% of the DRAM (semiconductor memory) market. The price increase caused by the imbalance in supply and demand will be the norm this year, as the HBM production capacity gap is 50%-60%, and the three major manufacturers will allocate 70% of their new or available capacity to HBM.
Thirdly, advanced manufacturing processes and packaging will jointly drive industrial upgrading. On one hand, the industry is facing challenges such as approaching physical limits and soaring economic costs. Among them, process nodes below 2 nanometers encounter problems such as quantum tunneling and gate control, and the marginal effect of GAA (fully surrounding gate) transistor architecture is diminishing; the construction cost of wafer factories exceeds 25 billion US dollars, approaching three times that of the 7-nanometer era. On the other hand, advanced packaging is expected to achieve a strategic leap, and related technologies provide an "asymmetric" breakthrough path, which will reduce design costs and risks. And advanced manufacturing processes and advanced packaging will achieve a win-win situation in terms of performance and cost at the system level.
Feng Li believes that China will dominate the mainstream nodes. By 2028, China's share of mainstream semiconductor manufacturing capacity will reach 42%. China is also expected to see the emergence of several world-class platform-type semiconductor equipment enterprises.
In the face of the escalation of the situation in the Middle East, the transportation of some key materials has inevitably been affected. However, the impact has not yet spread widely to the downstream sectors and does not hinder the long-term development of the semiconductor industry.
As the largest and most technologically advanced semiconductor "festival" in the world, SEMICON China 2026, which will open on March 25th, will set new records in terms of exhibition area, number of exhibitors and the number of concurrent forums. Feng Li introduced that this year's exhibition area will exceed 100,000 square meters, with 1,500 exhibitors and 5,000 booths. In addition, there will be more than 20 conferences and events during the event, covering the entire semiconductor industry chain including chip design, manufacturing, packaging, equipment, materials, photovoltaics, and display. "In 2025, we attracted 180,000 professional visitors. Judging from this year's registration situation, the number of attendees is expected to reach a new high."
