For most of the past two decades, business technology followed a comforting rule: wait, and it gets cheaper. Buyers could often delay a laptop or workstation purchase and expect to get more performance for the same money a year later.
That rule has become much less reliable. As businesses begin building their 2027 budgets, hardware costs remain elevated and unusually difficult to predict. The extreme memory price increases seen earlier in 2026 are beginning to moderate, but AI-driven demand, constrained component supply, tariffs, and shifting supply chains continue to put pressure on the cost of everyday business technology.
For a small or midsize business, the goal is not to predict exactly when prices will rise or fall. It is to know what equipment will need replacing before a failure forces the decision.
The AI Supercycle Is Rewriting Component Prices
Memory has been at the center of the hardware pricing disruption. TrendForce reported that conventional DRAM contract prices increased approximately 93 to 98 percent quarter over quarter in the first quarter of 2026, and projected another 58 to 63 percent increase for the second quarter, while NAND Flash contract prices were projected to rise 70 to 75 percent over that same stretch.
Those are component prices, not increases in the retail price of an entire computer. A 60 percent increase in DRAM does not make a laptop 60 percent more expensive. But memory and storage are meaningful parts of a computer’s cost, and manufacturers eventually have to account for those increases. Gartner estimated in February that higher DRAM and SSD costs could increase average PC prices by 17 percent in 2026 compared with 2025 and cause buyers to hold devices longer.
The market is also changing as the year progresses. TrendForce’s third-quarter forecast calls for conventional DRAM prices to increase another 13 to 18 percent and NAND Flash 10 to 15 percent. Those increases remain significant, but TrendForce specifically notes that the pace is moderating as prices reach record levels and PC and smartphone buyers reach their affordability limits.
That makes the current situation more nuanced than simply saying prices keep accelerating. Hardware costs experienced an extraordinary shock during the first half of 2026. The rate of increase is now slowing, but businesses are buying from a much higher cost base than they were a year ago.
Tariffs & Trade Policy Add a Second Layer of Cost
Component pricing is only part of the equation. The Consumer Technology Association reports that consumer technology importers paid $23.5 billion in tariffs during 2025, more than five times the $4.0 billion paid the year before, with the average tariff rate across the industry rising from approximately 1 percent to 7 percent by the end of 2025.
Tariff payments peaked at $3.3 billion in October 2025 and declined somewhat through February 2026, but CTA reports that the burden remains well above historical levels. More important for businesses trying to plan future purchases, trade policy and sourcing strategies continue to change, creating another variable manufacturers and distributors must account for when setting prices.
The practical issue is uncertainty. A business does not need to become an expert in semiconductor manufacturing or trade policy, but it should recognize that hardware pricing is being influenced by more forces than the traditional product cycle.
Supply Chains Turn Volatility Into Unpredictability
AI infrastructure is also changing how manufacturers allocate limited production capacity. TrendForce reports that memory suppliers have been prioritizing server-related applications while PC manufacturers compete for constrained supply. Strong demand from cloud providers and AI data centers has expanded memory requirements well beyond the specialized components used only in AI systems.
The result is a hardware market in which different configurations can behave very differently. A system with more memory or storage may see a larger increase than a basic configuration, while inventory purchased earlier at lower component costs can temporarily insulate one model from increases affecting another.
Gartner describes the broader technology market as increasingly divided, with AI infrastructure growing rapidly while higher memory costs are lifting device selling prices and constraining normal replacement cycles. Device spending is still growing, but the forces behind a server purchased for an AI data center and a laptop purchased by a 50-person business are not identical.
For businesses, that makes trying to time the market difficult. The better approach is to create enough lead time that price and availability can be considered before the purchase becomes urgent.
The Most Expensive Way to Buy Hardware Is in a Hurry
Consider two companies with similar fleets of aging laptops. The first knows which systems are likely to need replacement over the next year, includes them in the budget, and can decide when to order based on condition, pricing, availability, and business needs. If a machine is performing well and remains fully supported, the company may even decide to keep it another year.
The second company replaces computers when they fail. When a critical machine stops working, there is little time to compare configurations, wait for inventory, adjust the specification, or decide whether a different replacement schedule would make more sense. The company needs a computer now and buys whatever appropriate option is available.
Both companies are subject to the same hardware market. The difference is that one still has choices.
That distinction matters because good lifecycle planning does not automatically mean buying hardware sooner. Sometimes it makes sense to purchase ahead of a known need. Other times, the smarter decision is to extend the life of a reliable and fully supported system rather than replace it simply because it reached an arbitrary age.
Extending the life of equipment only works when the equipment is still supported. Gartner expects the average business PC lifetime to increase roughly 15 percent by the end of 2026 as buyers react to higher prices, and it specifically notes that those delayed upgrades raise security concerns and make older devices harder to manage. The distinction that matters is not old versus new. It is supported versus unsupported. A well-maintained machine that still receives security updates can often stay in service another year without much risk. A machine that no longer receives updates, or one still running an operating system past its end of support, is a different situation. With Windows 10 having reached end of support in October 2025, this is a live question for a lot of businesses rather than a hypothetical one. Avoiding a hardware purchase by keeping unsupported equipment in production is not a saving. It moves the cost from the budget to the risk register.
The objective is not to buy more hardware. It is to avoid having a hardware failure make the purchasing decision for you.
Turning Hardware Costs Into a Planned Line Item
This is particularly relevant as organizations begin building their 2027 budgets. Rather than trying to forecast the exact price of a laptop six or twelve months from now, businesses can identify which computers, servers, and other equipment are likely to require attention over the next 12 to 24 months and build those needs into the budget.
At 99Ten, that is part of the role we believe a technology partner should play. By tracking the age and condition of equipment across the environments we manage, we can help clients identify systems approaching replacement, distinguish them from equipment that can reasonably remain in service, and plan purchases before a failure creates an emergency.
That visibility turns hardware from an unpredictable expense into a manageable lifecycle. A business can spread replacements across budget periods, evaluate purchases when it has time to compare options, and avoid stretching unsupported or unreliable equipment simply because the replacement was never planned.
Hardware prices may continue to move as memory markets, AI demand, tariffs, and supply chains change. Businesses cannot control those forces, but they can control whether they enter the market with a plan or because something broke yesterday.
IT Consulting & Strategy: Builds a technology roadmap that schedules replacement before failure forces the decision.
IT Infrastructure & Management: Tracks the age and condition of equipment so purchases can be planned rather than triggered by a breakdown.
Managed IT Services: Keeps existing equipment operating reliably and helps identify what needs replacing and what can remain in service.
👉 If your organization is building its 2027 budget, our team is ready to help you turn that list into a practical replacement budget and schedule, starting with the equipment you already own.
