April 23, 2026
For the third time in a decade, the technology world is enduring a “once-in-a-decade” supply chain disruption. First, in 2021, COVID-19 disrupted global supply chains by first constricting supply by emptying the factories producing electronics-based systems, then sent demand soaring for those same systems to support the new remote work and electronic-delivery economies. Second, in early 2025, the “Liberation Day” tariffs significantly increased the cost of electronics sourced from Asia. Now, in 2026, the extraordinary growth in demand for semiconductor components to fuel the insatiable appetite for AI has far outstripped the world’s semiconductor fabrication capacity, driving component prices to record heights.
For customers, this represents the sharpest increase in technology pricing in the high tech era. It has caught everyone by surprise, as even those not investing in AI are also affected by this technology price inflation. Indeed, all customers, including many technology manufacturers, are subject to these dramatic increases.
Everpure sources large amounts of CPUs, DRAM memory, Flash storage chips, and thousands of other components to build our enterprise, hyperscaler and AI data storage systems. Due to escalating costs we have raised our prices in the last quarter, and may have to do so again. On average, our prices have risen approximately 70% since the beginning of the year.
This is a staggering increase when one considers that on a price-per-Terabyte basis, our prices had decreased an average of 20% per year over the last decade. A 70% increase might seem unconscionable until one understands the reality behind it: Everpure’s input costs of many high-volume semiconductor components have surged between 300% and 900% (4x to 10x) since mid-2025. In some cases, suppliers could not supply committed volumes because of surging demand, requiring us to find alternative sources (at higher prices) to meet delivery promised times. While overall input costs began a slow rise in the third quarter of 2025, they roughly doubled between December and January, then doubled or tripled again in February and March.
This supply-demand imbalance will, unfortunately, last far longer than the COVID-era disruption for two primary reasons. First, chip vendors are shifting their limited fab capacity toward higher margin, AI related components. This has the consequence of further reducing the supply of chips necessary for other uses, thereby increasing their price. Second, it takes years and billions of dollars to add new fabrication facilities and make them fully operational. Because fab facilities require very high tech equipment, they are also escalating in cost. Unless demand created by AI abates in the next year, we could see these escalated costs continue for many years to come.
Everpure stands at the intersection of semiconductor supply chains and customers that rely on our systems. We experience both the dramatic rise and restricted supply of semiconductor components and the frustration of our customers who face both shortages and unplanned cost increases. It is in challenging times when the true nature of a person, or an organization, is revealed. I want to be very clear about our business philosophy and our commitment to you during this crisis.
Despite escalating costs in December and January, Everpure honored our pricing under outstanding quotes in accordance with their stated terms, 60 to 90 days at that time. During that period we were transparent and signaled to our customers and channel partners that price increases would be coming in our new fiscal year. We implemented the first price increase in early February, moving to 30 to 60 day expiration terms. As costs continued to surge, we signaled and enacted a second increase to secure our supply lines and our ability to fulfill customer orders. We now quote with 30 day expiration periods as component costs and availability are changing even more rapidly.
We are keeping our price increases significantly below our actual supply chain cost increases. This is possible because of several sustainable Everpure advantages that differentiate us from the competition:
We will not profiteer from this crisis. We signaled this commitment on our February earnings call, explicitly stating that we would be operating at the low end of our long-standing product gross margin range, partially absorbing these costs. We are choosing to share the burden alongside our customers. To that end, we are committed to transparency in our pricing and consistency in our engagement with customers, channel partners, and suppliers. We wish to stand out in the market in transparency, quality, continuous innovation, price competitiveness, terms and conditions, and ability to fulfill orders. Increasingly, our customers and partners are recognizing Everpure.
Undoubtedly, some competitors will reference this communication to claim that they benefit from better long term supplier contracts. Industry behavior suggests otherwise: competitors’ price increase began in December, and current competitors provide quote durations of one week or even less. Pure enjoys exceptional relationships with our supply chain partners, second to none, and we greatly respect how they have worked with us in this crisis.
Business and trust is built on consistent long-term relationships with all stakeholders: customers, suppliers, channel partners, employees and shareholders. Challenging times especially call for transparent communications and fair dealing. We remain committed to being a long-term, trusted partner.
Charles Giancarlo
Chairman and CEO of Everpure