China PCB: CFME (9630.HK/688630.SS, NC): Mgmt visits: PCB to drive growth ahead; Capacity expansion ongoing

We visited CFME's (9630.HK/688630.SS, not covered) management in Hong Kong recently and discussed its manufacturing capacity expansion roadmap, supply chain de-bottlenecking, and downstream capex dynamics across PCBs, IC substrates, and advanced packaging. Management remains constructive on its multi-year growth trajectory, underpinned by resilient equipment demand from tier-1 PCB fabricators, an accelerating domestic substitution window against incumbent Japanese peers in high-end IC substrates, and rapid client qualification in large-format panel-level packaging. Read across to China PCB: Management's positive tone on PCB equipment's end-demand echoes our positive view on AI server PCB. Our US Internet team forecasts that leading US cloud service providers in aggregate will grow their capex budgets by 84%/52%/13% YoY in 2026E-28E, with estimates raised by 4%/17%/22% to US$1,397bn by 2028E; within China Internet, leading Chinese cloud platforms are expected to grow capex by 105%/21%/1