NEPCON Japan has long served as a trusted barometer for the electronics industry. But this year, one message stood out clearly: the market narrative is shifting, and buyers still operating on last year’s assumptions risk falling behind.
Over three days in Tokyo, our team spoke with OEMs, EMS providers, component manufacturers, and partners across semiconductors, industrial electronics, and advanced manufacturing. The conversations were candid and grounded. Rather than chasing short-term price relief, discussions increasingly focused on what comes next—supply chain fragility, AI-driven demand volatility, and the growing urgency to build sourcing resilience for 2026 and beyond.
Below are the most important signals we took away—and why they matter.
While not every conversation centered on AI, its influence was unmistakable.
Across multiple manufacturers, we heard consistent references to:
Even buyers not directly serving AI markets expressed concern about indirect exposure, particularly if allocation priorities shift with little notice.
The industry is no longer divided cleanly between AI and non-AI demand. AI has become a gravity well—affecting pricing, availability, and supplier behavior across a wide range of components.
For buyers, this means risk is no longer isolated to headline parts. Second- and third-order impacts matter, and they are arriving faster than most internal planning cycles can accommodate.
Another clear shift from prior years is how early buyers are engaging sourcing partners.
Rather than reacting through spot buys, many teams discussed:
This reflects a broader realization: price optimization alone is not a strategy—resilience is.
At Fusion, this mirrors what we are seeing globally. Customers are asking not just whether a part can be sourced, but what happens if the market shifts again—and how exposed they may be when it does.
If one topic consistently resurfaced at NEPCON, it was memory—specifically DRAM.
Even among buyers not tied to AI servers or hyperscale programs, there was widespread awareness that the memory market is tightening faster than expected. Attendees pointed to increasing allocation discipline, early signs of price firming, and uncertainty around how much capacity will remain available for non-AI applications as 2026 progresses.
What stood out was not panic, but vigilance.
Unlike past cycles—where constraints became visible only after shortages hit—buyers this year are paying attention earlier. Many acknowledged DRAM’s tendency to flip quickly, and recognized that today’s relative calm masks a market shaped by:
The concern is less about if DRAM tightens, and more about when—and whether internal assumptions will lag reality.
The takeaway is clear: memory is no longer treated as a background commodity. For many organizations, DRAM is now a strategic exposure requiring continuous monitoring, not quarterly check-ins.
Based on what we heard at NEPCON Japan 2026, three actions stand out:
Separate short-term relief from long-term planning. Use today’s availability to stabilize programs—not to relax controls.
Pressure-test indirect exposure to AI demand. Even if you don’t build for AI, your supply chain may.
Treat sourcing intelligence as a strategic input, not a transaction. The most prepared teams we spoke with are already doing this—and it shows.
NEPCON Japan 2026 reinforced a simple truth: the industry is not returning to an old normal. It is entering a phase where volatility is episodic, asymmetric, and fast-moving.
The teams that succeed won’t be the ones that predict perfectly. They’ll be the ones that stay informed, remain flexible, and act before conditions change. If NEPCON taught us anything this year, it’s that being Out in Front isn’t about forecasting the future—it’s about being ready when it shifts.
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