27/10/2026
PC shipments fell 22% in July–September 2026, compared with a year earlier.
Not because people stopped wanting computers. Memory got expensive: DRAM cost about five times more in a year. The same factories make memory for laptops and for AI servers, and AI memory needs about four times the factory space per gigabyte. Three companies make about 90% of the world's DRAM, and a new factory takes two to three years or more. When AI pays more, your laptop waits.
Would you pay more for a laptop, or wait?
The System Behind It · Episode 002
Sources: Gartner (preliminary Q3 2026, 24 Oct 2026) · CSIS · TrendForce via CSIS
Voiceover: AI-generated.