JPMorgan: Semiconductor Equipment Market to Reach $159B in 2026, Up 28% as AI Capex Shifts from GPU to Upstream Supply Chain

According to JPMorgan, semiconductor equipment suppliers will be the biggest beneficiaries of AI infrastructure expansion, not GPU makers, a shift highlighted in the bank's latest industry report. The investment focus is moving from GPU-centric demand to a broader semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem requiring CPU, custom ASICs, high-bandwidth memory, DRAM, NAND, and advanced packaging.

JPMorgan forecasts the global wafer fab equipment market at $159.8 billion in 2026 (up 28% year-over-year), $205 billion in 2027, and $237.3 billion in 2028. The bank also raised its 2026 capex growth forecast for major cloud providers—Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta—from 63% to 80%, with combined spending exceeding $575 billion. Industry data supports this thesis: global semiconductor sales in April 2026 grew 106% year-over-year, the highest monthly rate since at least 1994, with equipment vendors citing record order visibility.