Mexico has broken its long-standing association with automotive exports by shipping $105.8 billion worth of AI infrastructure hardware to the US in just the first five months of 2026. This figure marks an 84.5% jump compared to last year and surpasses car exports for the first time ever, underscoring Mexico's transformation into a key player in the AI supply chain.
Factories in Mexico now focus heavily on assembling servers, networking devices, and other data center equipment, which are essential for the rapidly expanding US hyperscale AI data centers. Major manufacturers such as Foxconn, Flex, Jabil, and Sanmina have all invested heavily in Mexican operations to capture the nearshoring advantage. Foreign direct investment in Mexico’s manufacturing soared to $40.9 billion during the first nine months of 2025, up 15% from the previous year, highlighting how companies are racing to produce closer to their primary market.
The US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) paved the way for this shift, but it was the combination of pandemic-related supply chain disruptions, escalating tariffs on Chinese imports, and soaring demand for AI compute power that accelerated the shift in manufacturing hubs. Amazon Web Services alone has committed over $5 billion to its new Mexico (Central) Region, with data center operations in Querétaro expected to start running by 2025.
To put this scale into perspective, $105.8 billion over five months indicates an annualized export run rate exceeding $250 billion. Since Mexico’s total goods exports to the US have hovered around $400 billion annually in recent years, AI hardware exports are on track to become the dominant force in bilateral trade. The ongoing growth in investment also signals that this trend is far from slowing down.
Investors should keep an eye on the contract manufacturers benefiting most from this boom, as their Mexican operations become increasingly significant to their overall revenues. Companies like Foxconn and Jabil, publicly traded and deeply involved in Mexican assembly lines, stand to gain the most. Meanwhile, broader industry watchers may want to track how this nearshoring trend affects global supply chains and the competitive landscape for AI infrastructure.
