AI Data Center Boom Ripples Into the PC Market as Memory Shortages Hit Shipments
TECHWORLD ·
✦ AI Summary
As AI data center investment expands and memory shortages intensify, component prices for PCs are rising, pushing up PC manufacturing costs and finished-product prices.
Intel forecast that worldwide PC shipments will fall by about 12% this year and by another 10% in 2027, while Gartner estimated global PC shipments at 55.35 million units in the third quarter of 2026.
IDC and Intel said memory shortages, higher ASPs, and delayed purchases are likely to continue, even as demand for AI PCs increases.
The slowdown in the global PC market is accelerating. According to industry sources on the 3rd, expanded AI data center investment is creating shortages in memory semiconductors, pushing up component prices. That is driving up PC manufacturing costs, which in turn is leading to higher finished-product prices and weaker demand.
In particular, as memory supply is concentrated in AI data centers, price increases for PC components are becoming more pronounced. This trend is cited as a backdrop to the accelerating downturn in the global PC market.
Intel said in a recent earnings conference call that the slowdown in the global PC market is proceeding faster than expected. The company forecast that worldwide PC shipments will fall by about 12% this year and decline by another 10% in 2027.
Intel noted that the pace of market adjustment has accelerated further over the past two months. It also expects the difficult market environment in the PC industry to continue for the next several quarters.
Expanded AI data center investment has been identified as a cause of the shrinking PC market. As demand for HBM for AI servers surges and demand for server memory also jumps, memory manufacturers have shifted production and supply capabilities toward AI infrastructure. In this regard, TrendForce released a supply chain analysis in October 2026 and forecast that shortages in memory and storage will continue through 2027.
TrendForce analyzed that memory makers are prioritizing supply capacity for server DRAM over PC DRAM. As a result, memory shortages have emerged, driving up PC manufacturing costs. According to Gartner, DRAM prices in the second quarter of 2026 were five times higher than a year earlier.
The increase in memory and storage prices has been passed on to PC sale prices. As a result, consumers' purchasing burden has increased. Gartner cited finished-product price hikes stemming from higher memory and storage prices, manufacturers' adjustments to prioritize limited component supplies, and reduced supply of low-end PC product lines.
Global PC shipments in the third quarter of 2026, as announced by Gartner, totaled 55.35 million units. That was down 22.4% from a year earlier. The decline was interpreted as the result of memory and storage shortages caused by the expansion of AI servers, price increases, higher finished-product prices, and growing consumer cost burdens, all of which fed into the drop in global PC shipments.
Analysts say higher component and memory prices are leading manufacturers to cut back on low-end product supply, which in turn is pushing up the average selling price, or ASP, of PCs. As a result, analysts have raised the possibility of weaker replacement demand among price-sensitive consumers, along with delays in PC purchases by consumers and companies.
IDC said the memory supply shortage is expected to persist through 2027. IDC's forecast for global PC shipments in 2026 calls for an 11.3% decline from the previous year. IDC's point was that prolonged memory shortages, lower PC shipments in 2026, and higher ASPs will lead to delayed purchases.
On the corporate side, AI-centered restructuring of IT budgets is under way, with continued investment in AI data centers and related infrastructure. As a result, budgets allocated for large-scale replacements and new deployments of general-purpose office PCs are relatively constrained. This is adding pressure to the PC market as corporate IT budgets are reorganized.
This backdrop is also evident in Intel's comments in filings related to its earnings. In explaining the decline in client market demand, Intel cited rising prices for key components such as memory, limited IT budgets, and tighter inventory management. The essence of Intel's remarks was that higher component prices, budget constraints, and stricter inventory control are behind the decline in client demand, and that unlike the data center market, the client market is being hit hard by the slowdown.
By contrast, Intel said demand for data center products exceeds supply. It also said that demand weakness is appearing in the client market, which is sensitive to memory prices. This trend has led to a comparison in which data center products remain in strong demand while the client PC market is relatively sluggish.
Regarding its 2026 PC market outlook, IDC said expected memory price increases and anticipated component shortages could bring purchases forward for consumers and companies, resulting in a temporary pickup in first-half PC demand, but that this could later lead to a second-half decline because of a demand gap caused by pre-buying.
The possibility of weaker operating system replacement demand was also raised. According to IDC's analysis, extended security update support for Windows 10 is easing the urgency of PC replacement, which could act as a factor delaying PC upgrades for companies and consumers.
This market slowdown has also affected major PC makers. The day after Intel's earnings release, its share price fell more than 28%, Dell's stock dropped 10.7%, HP's fell 9.6%, and Lenovo's declined 7.4%. Dell, HP, and Lenovo are among the companies that supply Intel processors.
Meanwhile, the growth of AI PCs and expectations for a rebound in Intel's client market were also mentioned.
Intel remains positive about the PC market's medium- to long-term growth potential, separate from the current slowdown. David Zinsner, Intel's CFO, said he expects the PC market to grow again despite the current downturn.
As the basis for that view, Intel pointed to the spread of AI workloads and rising demand for on-device computing on client devices. It also highlighted Agentic Box, a device dedicated to PCs and AI agents, as a factor supporting that growth.
In fact, Intel's revenue from processors for AI PCs rose 35% year over year in the third quarter of this year. Over the same period, total revenue from Intel's client computing business fell 5%, showing that the AI PC-related business grew while the broader client computing business moved in the opposite direction.
HP also forecast expansion in the AI PC market. AI PCs with NPUs accounted for 46% of total shipments in the previous quarter, and HP expects the share of AI PCs with NPUs to rise to 60% to 70% next year.
Overall PC market demand is slowing and total PC purchases are falling, but demand for new PCs with AI computing capabilities is expanding. However, growth in the AI PC market remains subject to variables, and it is unclear whether AI PC growth can offset the impact of rising memory prices and declining overall PC demand. Accordingly, the key variable for future market recovery is presented as whether the growth of AI PCs can offset those headwinds.
Source: TECHWORLD · Park Kyu-chan
Original: https://www.epnc.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=409160
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Source: TECHWORLD
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