The technology industry is undergoing a profound transformation in its global production chain, driven by geopolitical uncertainties, including conflicts in the Middle East.
According to Luiz Tonisi, president of Latin America, the sector seeks a more horizontal and geographically balanced structure.
Since 2021, with initiatives such as the SHIP Act in the United States, large technology companies have promoted the diversification of the production chain, migrating a significant part of their manufacturing capacity to other continents.
“Much of this capacity is being migrated to other continents such as the United States,” said Tonisi, highlighting that manufacturers such as Samsung and TSMC have already made commitments to establish production in both Europe and the United States.
Impact on consumer prices
This industry restructuring has direct consequences for end consumers. Tonisi explained that component prices, especially memories, are increasing significantly due to the prioritization of production for data centers.
“If I can manufacture memory for a data center that has a very high added value, why would I manufacture it for devices where the added value is lower?”, he asked.
According to him, the price of memory is not just rising 10% or 20%, but “tripling or quadrupling”, which will inevitably be passed on to the end consumer. This particularly affects entry-level smartphones, PCs and other IoT devices, strangling the entire production chain.
The role of Latin America
Regarding the role of in this scenario, Tonisi highlighted that the region will continue to be an important consumer market for smartphones, computers and, increasingly, data center services. However, new opportunities arise with the evolution of .
The executive explained that AI applications will not be restricted to large data centers, but will be distributed on local devices and servers.
“Imagine the robot, to take an action or give a response, it cannot wait for a response from the data center”, he exemplified, highlighting the importance of local processing for critical applications.
This trend of local data processing, according to Tonisi, opens up opportunities for the region in several sectors, such as retail, where AI systems can analyze purchasing behaviors in real time.
“All of this is data running for the AI that is being captured by a camera locally with an AI server placed within the store,” he concluded.
