Dell, Lenovo stated to be elevating costs as chip shortages worsen

With shortages of DRAM and flash reminiscence for SSDs driving up retail costs, the expectation is that PC makers can be hit by rising prices, too. In response to a report, each Lenovo and Dell will likely be elevating costs quickly to account for the extra prices of reminiscence and storage.

In response to a report by TrendForce, which displays Taiwan’s provide chain, each Dell and Lenovo have despatched notices to their very own prospects warning them that costs will likely be going up. TrendForce reviews that Dell is planning to boost its costs virtually instantly: by 15 to twenty % in mid-December. Up to now, Lenovo isn’t notifying prospects of how a lot it plans to boost costs, however reportedly will accomplish that in January.

The narrative continues to be a easy one: Enterprise-backed AI hyperscalers proceed to purchase up no matter elements they will to construct out information facilities. Whereas Intel and different CPU firms divide up their product traces between the buyer and enterprise markets, the road is far blurrier the place DRAM and storage are involved. With AI firms shopping for up as a lot high-speed RAM and SSD storage as they will, that has pulled provide away from the buyer market and brought on costs of each elements to start out rising, shortly.

Prebuilt PC maker CyberPower was scheduled to boost costs on Sunday evening, citing elevated part prices as effectively, and it wouldn’t be shocking if different PC distributors did the identical.

The issue has rippled up and down the provision chain, with reviews that DRAM makers aren’t even offering short-term or “spot” pricing, however asking prospects to signal long-term contracts. That, in flip, has left different distributors who’ve signed such contracts anxious about in the event that they’ll have the ability to supply the mandatory reminiscence.

TrendForce additionally predicts that the shortages will pull down PC configurations as effectively, with “excessive finish” 2026 PCs together with simply 32GB of RAM and a terabyte of SSD storage, fairly than the 64GB of RAM and 2TB of storage that usually populate high-end PCs.

Dell and Lenovo couldn’t be instantly reached for remark.