With every big AI outfit doubling its capacity plans over the next three years, memory suppliers are shovelling resources into high-bandwidth memory rather than the small, low-margin DIMMs and SSDs that PCs actually need. The result is a supply crunch that PC makers say they cannot absorb for much longer.

According to ZDNet, PC vendors have been taking a hit on memory costs since October. Managers say they are now planning to bump the price of next year’s gear by at least 20 per cent because they have no choice but to claw back spiralling component expenses.

Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron recently warned PC manufacturers that DDR4 lines are winding down and that the remaining products will surge in price. A supply chain manager from an overseas PC maker said the current spike is nothing like the summertime blips.

He said: “The price has doubled every 10 days,” and warned that even placing full-price orders does not guarantee you will receive the quantity you want.

The same manager told ZDNet that unit costs for memory and SSDs now jump by tens of dollars at a time, instantly wiping out margins because PC makers usually agonise over rises of a single cent. Machines built after October are already in deficit before they even leave the production line.

Rising costs for processors and batteries add to the misery. The manager said that the only viable fix is to hike prices on new models by at least 20 per cent while killing older lines quickly to stop the bleeding of cash.

Memory manufacturers show little appetite to rescue the PC crowd. They are far more interested in ramping up high-value HBM parts that the AI mob will snap up at premium prices. Conventional DDR5 or LPDDR5 production is not growing fast enough to help, and substitute suppliers such as China’s CXMT have nothing ready for mainstream use.

This bottleneck threatens to throttle PC shipments. Analysts at IDC and Gartner have already trimmed next year’s shipment forecasts, but supply-chain insiders believe they will fall further because many brands will receive only half of what they order.

The manager said that distribution patterns will change sharply because there is no surplus stock to shift at a discount. Vendors cannot hold inventory when every unit is scarce. He warned that buying a laptop this year might be the safest bet because after 2028, the notion of bargain stock models will be a fading memory, their surname said.