A post on X (formerly Twitter) in early January summed up most of the computer-related stupidity for the forthcoming year:
“The reason why RAM has become four times more expensive is that a huge amount of RAM that has not yet been produced was purchased with non-existent money to be installed in GPUs that also have not yet been produced, in order to place them in data centers that have not yet been built, powered by infrastructure that may never appear, to satisfy demand that does not actually exist and to obtain profit that is mathematically impossible.”
Whatever your politics, and however jaded some of us may be (looking in the mirror), the reality is that everything that remotely relates to computers is going to become more expensive.
One client must replace their Dell Windows Server in July. Last September, when I quickly spec’d the price, it was approximately $6,800. I did the same exercise in January to check, and found it was up to $7,500. Just last week, I found the price is now over $10,000. This client will not be happy about that, despite my note saying, “prices may increase.” But the thing is, I don’t know how much more the price will increase by the time I place the order. And that’s not the worst part. Last year, Dell would build and ship in two or three weeks. Now, there’s a nearly 12-week wait, which means I must place the order in mid-April for delivery sometime in July, for a device whose price is fluctuating wildly.
Automobile manufacturers are starting to hoard existing computer chips and place larger orders from chip manufacturers in an effort to “get ahead” of a problem they last experienced shortly after the start of the COVID pandemic. Some manufacturers – according to the trade press – are even considering branching out and building their own fabrication plants to ensure supply. Hearkens back to the “old days” when Ford made almost every part used in their early vehicles.
Other manufacturers, particularly those that create “smart appliances,” will feel the economic pinch as the chips used for those esoteric features become harder and harder to obtain. Luddite that I am, I don’t need my refrigerator to tell me I need to drink a glass of water as I pass by the kitchen – I’m happy sipping my Vintage seltzer throughout the day.
So that’s why I’ll be sighing quite frequently and loudly for the next year.