Austrian Firm AT&S Rides Surging Demand From Global AI Boom

SYDNEY: (News Desk) – Nestled among the wooded hills of Austria’s Styria region, the town of Leoben is known for its pastel-coloured buildings, historic streets and a central square dominated by a centuries-old church.

Yet on the outskirts of the picturesque town, cutting-edge technology is being developed for the global artificial intelligence industry. Engineers at electronics company AT&S work with advanced machinery and robotic systems to manufacture components that play a critical role in modern AI hardware.

AT&S specialises in integrated circuit substrates, which connect computer chips with memory, power and other components. These specialised boards have become increasingly important as demand grows for faster and more powerful computing systems.

The company has emerged as one of Europe’s notable beneficiaries of the AI boom, with its shares gaining more than 450 percent this year. Chief executive Michael Mertin believes the company’s performance demonstrates that Europe can remain competitive by focusing on highly specialised technologies.

Mertin acknowledged that Europe is unlikely to match the United States in chip innovation or Asian manufacturers in production scale. However, he argued that the region continues to possess world-leading expertise in several important areas of the technology supply chain.

Founded in 1987 as a printed circuit board manufacturer, AT&S entered the IC substrate market in 2016, beginning serial production at a facility in Chongqing, China. The company later expanded its manufacturing footprint with a new IC substrate plant in Malaysia in 2024.

The Leoben facility, known as the Hinterberg plant, serves as AT&S’s global headquarters and hosts its research and development operations. Following an investment of more than €500 million in a research and production centre opened last year, the site has become Europe’s only major commercial producer of advanced IC substrates.

AI Demand Drives Growth

Malcolm Penn, chairman of semiconductor consultancy Future Horizons, described AT&S as one of the relatively few European companies directly benefiting from the rapid growth of AI hardware.

He said the company was benefiting from the AI expansion rather than driving the overall technological shift. IC substrates are particularly important because they can help reduce power consumption and electrical noise while supporting higher processing speeds.

Europe’s role in AI hardware is increasingly concentrated in specialised segments of the semiconductor supply chain. Dutch lithography company ASML and British chip designer Arm are among the region’s most prominent technology leaders.

Although AT&S does not operate on the same scale as those companies, the rapid expansion of AI has significantly increased demand for its products. Senior operations director Barbara Decker-Schloegl said customer inquiries have been steadily increasing across the business.

Mertin expects demand for AI-related computing modules to remain strong and described the transformation as an industrial revolution comparable in significance to the arrival of engines and the steam engine.

Global Workforce Transforms Historic Town

Around 2,200 employees from more than 70 countries work at AT&S’s Leoben site. The town itself has a population of about 28,000 and was historically known as an important centre of iron mining.

AT&S’s workforce reflects the increasingly international nature of the technology industry, although roughly 60 percent of employees are Austrian. The company is also one of the region’s largest employers.

The Technical University of Leoben, with its long-standing expertise in mining, metallurgy and materials science, has supplied generations of engineers and technical specialists to the company.

Local officials say AT&S’s expansion has brought highly skilled employment and greater international recognition to Leoben and the surrounding region. At the same time, population growth linked to new employees and their families is creating additional demands for housing, education, childcare and other public services.

For many residents, the company has become deeply connected with the town’s identity. Local social worker Sigrid Halm said AT&S remains an important source of employment, noting that her father worked as an engineer and senior executive at the Hinterberg facility, while both of her children have also worked for the company.