It seems the worst of the AI-induced chip shortages is not behind us. We've been seeing a limited supply of RAM and storage devices around the world in 2026, as well as massively inflated prices on both. Now, it seems that CPUs are the next chip to fall, with reports from PC building brands detailing a smaller supply than usual. If the best CPUs for gaming start to see the same kinds of inflation as memory and storage, consumers could be in for a really tricky time.
New reports come from Nekkei Asia by way of our friends at Tom's Hardware and PC Gamer, but no matter who you read it from, things don't look good for consumers. Granted, a lot of the claims so far are seemingly hitting server builders first, but just as RAM for gamers uses the same building blocks as RAM for data centers, server CPUs and gaming PC processors share the same types of raw parts.
