BOTTOM LINE: The personal computer market is heading into a rough stretch as a memory shortage ripples through the industry, driving up prices and forcing PC makers to rethink how they design their systems. New data from IDC points to a sharp slowdown in global PC shipments, which are expected to decline 11.3% this year. By the fourth quarter, shipments could be down roughly 20% from a year earlier – a steep drop for what has been a relatively stable market in recent years.
The main issue is supply, especially a shortage of high-end DRAM, much of which is now being diverted to AI data centers.
According to IDC, AI data centers are on track to consume 70% of global high-end DRAM output this year. That shift is forcing PC makers to compete for limited memory supplies, which is already showing up in higher prices and stripped-down configurations.
Consumers are already feeling the impact. Higher memory costs have pushed up the price of premium machines, in some cases by hundreds of dollars. At the same time, manufacturers are making trade-offs to keep systems within reach, including offering configurations with less RAM than what has become standard in recent years. In some cases, those compromises mean machines no longer meet newer baseline requirements for AI features such as Copilot, particularly when vendors drop back to 8GB configurations.
