CPU shortages loom as PC makers scramble for chips

RAM, storage, graphics cards. All of them are getting harder to find, and, of course, more expensive as the “AI” bubble gobbles up manufacturing capacity. According to a new industry report, processors are next in line. Lead times for CPUs are now stretching out to multiple months, making it harder for manufacturers to finish and sell consumer PCs.

Processors are incredibly expensive to produce compared to their component cost — they’re one of the most complex parts of, well, just about anything. So companies like Intel, AMD, TSMC, and Qualcomm don’t build out capacity if they don’t think they’ll need it. It’s a risk mitigation strategy that pays off…most of the time. But when you get a spike in demand, like, say, for massive data centers filled with expensive servers being planned all over the planet, suddenly the output can’t match the demand.

According to a report from Nikkei Asia, lead times for CPU deliveries to server manufacturers has slipped from two weeks to two or three months, with at least one reporting a wait time of six months. These are the most complex, expensive processors available, and thus the most profitable, and the ones that companies like AMD and Intel are most motivated to sell. Separately, Intel exec David Feng confirmed to CRN that the company has raised CPU prices for PC makers, though his comments again focused on the server market. Nikkei (via Tom’s Hardware) also quoted an executive for consumer gaming PCs, who said that paying more may not mean they get more in terms of supply.

And it makes sense that throwing money at this problem wouldn’t solve it. Scaling for this sort of thing doesn’t happen quickly or cheaply. There is no realistic way for CPU sellers or their fabrication partners to rapidly expand — a new chip fab takes five to ten years to build from the ground up, with costs stretching into the billions. Even if CPU manufacturers try to offset a shortage, the production output will be focused on those servers and data centers. It won’t help alleviate a crunch on consumer hardware, resulting in the sky-high prices we’re seeing for the RAM and storage that go into the laptops and desktops for regular users.

This isn’t coming out of the blue. We’ve been hearing about shortages for Intel chips specifically since the beginning of the year. That’s going to be a particularly bad situation for Intel.

And as always, consumers will get the short end of the stick. With PC prices already expected to balloon up to 40 percent in 2026, the bad news just keeps coming. There are indications that the “AI” boom is losing steam, as the realities of power access and hardware production just can’t match the ambitions of the rollout, and investors start to set more realistic expectations of what “AI” can actually do.

But a full-on bubble pop might crash the broader economy, causing much more immediate problems than finding affordable PCs. Fun.