Source: The Next Web
The April attack on Saudi Arabia's SABIC facility exposed a critical chokepoint in AI hardware manufacturing: a single petrochemical complex supplies the epoxy resin backbone for printed circuit board laminates, which are essential to every data center server and GPU. Geopolitical conflict now directly throttles semiconductor infrastructure, creating both immediate price pressures on AI chip makers and longer-term incentives to regionalize production away from Middle East dependencies. The incident reframes chip shortage conversations from pandemic-era logistics to hard geopolitical fragility, where energy assets in conflict zones are now valid military targets.