McKinsey has raised its base-case forecast for the global semiconductor market in 2030 to 2.3 trillion dollars, up 44 percent from its previous estimate of 1.6 trillion dollars. The consultancy attributes the revision largely to AI data center demand, which has driven prices for leading-edge chips and memory higher than expected. It now projects annual market growth of 19 percent through 2030, compared with 13 percent in its previous forecast.
McKinsey expects chip sales for servers and data centers to climb from 330 billion dollars in 2025 to 1.2 trillion dollars in 2030. It estimates that leading-edge chips and memory will add 710 billion dollars and 560 billion dollars in market value, respectively. Higher prices account for much of the forecast increase: McKinsey’s projected wafer volume growth of about 7 percent a year is similar to last autumn’s estimate.
The forecast depends on sustained data center investment and a stable global economy. McKinsey says additional manufacturing capacity could ease the memory shortage from around 2027, although memory prices may remain above historical levels. Its scenarios put the 2030 market between 1.7 trillion and 2.6 trillion dollars, with 2.3 trillion dollars the base case.
