{
  "id": 2795137,
  "title": "How a small Austrian town found itself at the heart of the AI hardware race",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/23/how-a-small-austrian-town-found-itself-at-the-heart-of-the-ai",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-08-23T13:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Malay Mail",
    "slug": "malay-mail-malaymail",
    "url": "https://www.malaymail.com/news/money/2026/08/23/how-a-small-austrian-town-found-itself-at-the-heart-of-the-ai-hardware-race/232377"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Leoben, a town steeped in tradition in Austria's Styria region, has found itself at the center of the AI hardware race. Nestled in the wooded hills, Leoben boasts pastel-colored buildings and a 13th-century church in its central square. However, on the outskirts of town, engineers are busy developing components for some of the world's most advanced AI systems.\n\nAT&S, an electronics company based in Leoben, manufactures integrated circuit (IC) substrates that connect chips to computer memory and power supplies. The company's shares have risen more than 450 percent this year, making it one of Europe's most notable beneficiaries of the AI boom.\n\nCEO Michael Mertin believes that Europe can still \"occupy important niches\" in the AI race, even if it cannot match US rivals in chip innovation or Asian firms in production scale. \"We will not be the leading nation or the leading region... (but) there are some outstanding technologies where we are world leaders in Europe,\" Mertin stated.\n\nFounded in 1987, AT&S initially produced printed circuit boards before entering the IC substrate business in 2016. The company now operates two factories, one in Leoben (the Hinterberg plant) and another in Malaysia, and serves as Europe's only major commercial manufacturer of advanced IC substrates. AT&S invested over €500 million in a research and production center in 2023, becoming a significant player in the industry.\n\nMalcolm Penn, chairman of the semiconductor consultancy Future Horizons, notes that AT&S is one of the few European companies directly benefiting from the surge in demand for AI hardware. \"They're riding the AI boom... They're not driving the wave, they're riding the wave,\" he explained. IC substrates are crucial in the AI ecosystem as they help reduce power consumption, minimize noise, and increase speed.\n\nAT&S's growth has led to a significant rise in demand for AI-related hardware over the past few months, according to Barbara Decker-Schloegl, the company's senior director of operations. \"You can see it across all areas — customer inquiries keep rising and rising,\" she said. \"The issue of artificial intelligence, including the high demand for the corresponding computing modules, will not foreseeably slump,\" Mertin added, likening the growth to an \"industrial revolution.\"\n\nWith around 2,200 employees from more than 70 countries working at the Leoben site, AT&S is a significant employer in the region, which has historically been known for iron mining. The Technical University of Leoben has supplied the company with generations of engineers and technical specialists. The town's growth due to AT&S has brought highly qualified jobs, international visibility, and new demands in terms of housing, education, and childcare services.",
  "summary": "LEOBEN, Aug 23 — Nestled in the wooded hills of Austria’s Styria region, the town of Leoben oozes tradi...",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}