Hardware & the AI Buildout.
Why memory, storage, and GPUs got expensive in 2026, what it means if you're buying a laptop, a workstation, or a server, and how to make sane procurement decisions while the AI datacenter buildout soaks up supply. Written for people signing purchase orders, not chasing benchmarks.
Computex 2026 was all about 'AI PCs.' Should your small business buy one?
Taipei spent a week selling on-device AI: NVIDIA's RTX Spark, Intel's Arc G3 and Nova Lake tease, AMD's new X3D chips, a wall of 'AI laptops.' Here's the read for an owner deciding whether to refresh hardware in 2026, and why the memory shortage matters more than the AI badge.
NVIDIA's two 'Sparks': the DGX Spark and the new RTX Spark, explained
NVIDIA now has two 'Spark' machines, and people keep mixing them up. The DGX Spark is a shipping $4,000 AI-developer box; the RTX Spark, announced at Computex 2026, is a Windows-on-Arm consumer platform landing this fall. Here's what each one is, how they compare to an RTX 5090, Mac Studio, and Strix Halo, and whether either makes you more productive.
Why a laptop RTX 5090 isn't a desktop RTX 5090
Same sticker, different chip. The mobile RTX 5090 has roughly half the cores, less memory, and a third of the power budget of the desktop card, and the 100Wh battery rule means it throttles further unplugged. A plain-English guide to reading GPU specs before you spend.
The real total cost of running your own LLM in 2026
GPU sticker prices are only one line on the invoice. A breakdown of every cost center for self-hosted inference, with current 2026 numbers, so you can decide whether the math works for your use case.
Buying laptops and workstations in 2026, when memory is the expensive part
Between the RAM and NAND crunch and OEM price hikes, this is a genuinely bad year to buy computers. Some of you have to anyway. Here's how to spend sensibly, where the money actually goes, and why the part everyone worries about isn't the part that got expensive.
Leaving Windows 10 in the middle of a hardware shortage
Windows 10 hit end of support on October 14, 2025. A lot of small businesses still haven't moved, partly because the timing collides with the worst hardware market in years. Here's the honest set of options.
The actual break-even point for running LLMs yourself
Cloud APIs are cheap at small volume and expensive at large volume. Here's the rough math on where self-hosting starts to pay off, what it actually costs, and the common mistakes.
What it actually costs to run AI on your own hardware
A plain-English breakdown of the hardware, GPU, memory, and cloud costs involved in running AI inference, for operators who want a number, not a whitepaper.
SSDs got expensive too, and for the same reason as RAM
The 2026 memory crunch isn't just DRAM. NAND flash, the chips inside SSDs, has roughly doubled in price, with 2026 production already sold out. Here's what's going on and what to do about it.
Why RAM prices roughly doubled in 2026
Memory prices have moved sharply in 2026 because of AI datacenter demand. Here's what's happening, who's affected, and how long it's likely to last.
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