IT Hardware Procurement:Anticipate Rising Costs

In recent months, the global hardware market has been changing rapidly, mainly due to the rush toward artificial intelligence (AI) by major players such as OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and others.

In the fall of 2025, OpenAI signed massive agreements with memory manufacturers Samsung and SK Hynix as part of its Stargate project, which could account for up to 40% of global DRAM production over the next few years.

Several independent analyses show that a significant portion of global memory and storage capacity is now reserved for AI data centers, reducing the supply available to the rest of the market and driving up prices.

Here's what we've already seen in the industry since this fall:

Memory (DRAM) prices have risen by more than 171% since October 1, and several analysts anticipate further significant increases between now and 2026.

Source: Tom's Hardware

NAND (SSD) manufacturers are forecasting double-digit increases starting in early 2026, with demand growing faster than production capacity.

Source: TrendForce

Drives are already in high demand (up 88% since October 1 and 24% in the last week alone), with wait times of up to one to two years and price increases announced by some manufacturers.

Source: TechRadar

Combining these factors with information we receive from our own distributors and manufacturers, ited anticipates a gradual increase in the total cost of many equipments, including laptops, servers, storage units, and infrastructure solutions, ranging from 35% to 58% starting in January and continuing over the next 18 months, depending on model, capacity, and configuration.

This is not an instantaneous overnight increase, but a fundamental shift that has already begun and is expected to continue as manufacturing contracts are renewed.

Source: Forbes

What This Means for Your Organization

If you are planning within the next 12 to 24 months:

the replacement of a large number of workstations or laptops;
the renewal of physical servers (production, virtualization, backup, etc.);
the addition or renewal of storage arrays, SAN/NAS, backup or archiving solutions;
or any other infrastructure project that is highly dependent on memory or storage;

The period BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR is likely the best window to secure prices before increases are fully passed on throughout the supply chain.

What We Offer

ited can proactively support you in limiting the impact of this situation:

Review of your renewal plan: identification of the most critical items, laptops, servers, storage equipment, and user fleets.
Firm bids and targeted pre-orders: where relevant, secure the price of certain equipment from our distributors now.
Budget scenarios: show you the concrete financial impact of implementing a project now versus in 12, 18, or 24 months.

Our teams are closely monitoring the situation with major manufacturers and distributors. Our goal is simple: to help you protect your IT budgets and avoid unpleasant surprises in your infrastructure projects. If you wish, we can schedule a short meeting (30 minutes) to:

Quickly secure your analysis before the holidays.

As this effect is global, our ability to secure prices quickly may be limited in terms of time. Contact your usual ited representative to arrange a time that suits you.

ited, the TSP expert

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IT Hardware Procurement:Anticipate Rising Costs

Here's what we've already seen in the industry since this fall:

What This Means for Your Organization

What We Offer