Enterprise IT infrastructure buyers are bracing for hefty price hikes across servers, storage systems, and networking kit, driven by steep inflation in memory component costs that industry analysts warn will soon cascade through the supply chain.
RAM prices have surged dramatically in recent months, with manufacturers including Kingston, Micron, and Samsung raising prices by an average of 63 percent between September and December 2025 for the most common capacities – 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB modules sold in Europe, according to distribution market data compiled by analyst Context.
The price shock at the component level has begun working its way through the tech supply chain, though with varying degrees of impact at different stages.
Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) including HPE, Lenovo, Dell, and Cisco have seen more moderate increases of around 28 percent for enterprise RAM during the same period, Context enterprise analyst Gurvan Meyer told The Register, benefiting from existing component inventories and supply contracts that have temporarily cushioned the blow.
Distribution sell-through data shows the impact on complete infrastructure systems has remained relatively modest to date, with server system pricing edging up only 5-10 percent in December, as we reported at the time.
Meyer attributed this lag to OEM vendors working through component stocks purchased at earlier, lower prices.
However, this buffer period is coming to an end. As system vendors exhaust their inventories and are forced to purchase components at current inflated prices, Context expects infrastructure system costs to rise more substantially within the next three months.
The pricing pressure extends beyond memory chips. Storage components have also seen significant cost inflation, with price-per-gigabyte leaps of 30-40 percent for both SSDs and HDDs since September. This dual impact on both memory and storage components is expected to compound the effect on overall infrastructure system pricing.
The spike in component costs comes at a challenging time for enterprises already grappling with IT budget pressures and ongoing digital transformation initiatives. Organizations planning infrastructure refreshes or expansions may need to reassess budgets and timelines. No doubt some may consider accelerating purchases to lock in current pricing before further increases take effect.
The memory price inflation also raises questions about potential impacts on cloud service providers, which operate sprawling datacenter infrastructures and could face cost pressures they may pass on to enterprise customers through adjusted service pricing. ®
Source: The register