STMicroelectronics CEO warns AI data centers are starving car-chip lines; Aumovio sees a €1 billion 2027 hit
Chip CEOs warned in Munich that AI data centers are pulling foundry and packaging capacity away from car parts, and Aumovio has already priced the damage at €1 billion for 2027. STMicroelectronics, sold off last week as an AI loser, argues its own fabs are the hedge; carmakers and fabless rivals carry the bill.
Vincent Jiangtwo-minute read
The chip bosses who feed the car industry gathered in Munich this week and described the same squeeze. Stefan Tilger, interim CEO of Nexperia, the Dutch maker of the diodes and transistors every vehicle uses, told Reuters at the Electronica trade fair that his order book is "totally oversubscribed" because suppliers are diverting capacity toward AI data centers. "The automotive industry is suffering at the moment quite heavily," he said. His rival across the panel, STMicroelectronics+0.22% — STMicroelectronics, up 0.22 percent today CEO Jean-Marc Chery, said foundries and packaging houses are "disengaging" from the mature technologies cars run on. "We see many bottlenecks," Chery said 1.
The bill already has a number
Aumovio, the former Continental unit supplying radar sensors and cockpit electronics to BMW, Volkswagen, Ford and BYD, expects a gross earnings hit of about €1 billion in 2027, mainly from semiconductor inflation 2. Interim finance chief Claus Bauer called the cost dynamic "mind-boggling" and said data-center buyers show "no price sensitivity whatsoever" 2. Memory makers are already reporting operating margins near 80 percent as AI servers absorb DRAM and NAND 4. AI buyers pay whatever the rack costs; the car buyer funds both.
The stock that got the story backwards
Three days before the Munich warnings, the market sold STMicroelectronics 9.3 percent as an AI-fear stock, though data centers bring it under a tenth of revenue 3. On November 11 it rebounded 4.68 percent to €41.98 after a 9.81 percent one-month slide 5. Chery's answer is ownership: "We control a part of our future with our CapEx and our manufacturing" 1.
STMicro's revenue climbed through the auto squeeze, back above 2024 levels
Revenue is up 49% from the Q1 2025 trough and back above its 2024 level
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Q4 '24 | $3.32B |
| Q1 '25 | $2.52B |
| Q2 '25 | $2.77B |
| Q3 '25 | $3.19B |
| Q4 '25 | $3.33B |
| Q1 '26 | $3.1B |
| Q2 '26 | $3.49B |
| Q3 '26 | $3.76B |
The quarter backs him up so far: revenue of $3.76 billion, up 17.9 percent, operating income more than doubled to $367 million, gross margin up to 37.3 percent, and a Q4 guide of $4.15 billion at about 39 percent 6.
Margins are recovering, but operating profit is still half its late-2024 level
- Gross margin
- Operating margin
Data
| Gross margin | Operating margin | |
|---|---|---|
| Q4 '24 | 37.7% | 11.1% |
| Q1 '25 | 33.4% | 0.1% |
| Q2 '25 | 33.5% | -4.8% |
| Q3 '25 | 33.3% | 5.6% |
| Q4 '25 | 35.2% | 3.8% |
| Q1 '26 | 33.8% | 2.3% |
| Q2 '26 | 34.8% | 5.4% |
| Q3 '26 | 37.3% | 9.8% |
Who carries the risk
Nexperia sits on the wrong side of its own warning: a narrower, mature-node catalog with no captive fab cushion, still tangled in a control fight with its Chinese parent Wingtech 4. The test of Chery's bet comes in January, when Aumovio's annual supplier contracts reset and the €1 billion starts finding its way into car prices 2.
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