The component crisis ushered in by the AI boom seems to be poisoning supply chains even faster than first imagined. Things were expected to worsen in 2026, but we're already starting to see a teaser for the future with new industry reports coming from TrendForce, citing major price increases planned across the sector by every single player — including Dell and Lenovo.
Lenovo has reportedly started warning clients of a price hike coming in early 2026 as the DRAM shortage keeps accelerating at an unprecedented rate. All current quotes for servers and PCs are set to expire as soon as 1st January 2026, after which new, severely marked-up prices will be introduced.
On the other hand, Dell might not wait even that long and is reportedly considering a 15-20% increment in prices in the middle of December, so just a few days. Jeff Clarke, COO at the company, has already said he's "never seen memory-chip costs rise this fast," which hints at more than just DRAM being affected; it's the entire pipeline from NAND to HDDs, and even chip nodes.
TrendForce initially forecasted a 1.7% year-over-year (YoY) growth in notebook/laptop shipments for 2026, which has now been downgraded to a 2.6% YoY decline following reports that big players like Samsung, LG, Dell, HP, and Lenovo are all reconsidering their roadmaps for next year. Everyone is affected by AI, eating up production lines.
All the memory is being hoarded by one of these things: a data center. (Image credit: Getty Images / The Washington Post)
Just two days ago, Micron killed off its nearly 30-year-old consumer brand, Crucial, to focus on fulfilling AI demand, since margins with those clients are significantly higher. "There is an unprecedented cost increase widely in the industry, especially on memory and SSD. The cost increase itself is more dramatic than usual – more than any player can mitigate," warned Marco Andresen, an executive at Lenovo, told The Register. That report further reiterates that Dell and Lenovo, as well as HP and HPE, are planning price increases of 15 percent for servers and 5 percent for PCs.
Lenovo is reportedly recommending placing orders as soon as possible to avoid the next surge that's due in a couple of weeks. The company says that global supply strains were already suppressing DRAM production, but the advent of Big Tech chasing AI with seemingly unlimited funding only exacerbates the situation, causing the retail segment to suffer the most. And to think we're still in the beginning, folks.
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