Experts Warn: Get Your 2025 Hardware Purchases in Early

Experts are sounding the alarm about potential challenges on the horizon.

While we’re not economists, nor are we financial advisors, we do make it our business to keep our finger on the pulse when it comes to the technology industry. Computer hardware has always been dragged along by a tide that ebbs and flows based on a lot of external factors, but experts are chiming in to warn businesses that there is a good chance that IT hardware prices will increase substantially throughout 2025, and it isn’t clear when things might go back down. Let’s take a look at what’s going on.

Hardware Prices Likely to Skyrocket in 2025

A lot of factors can cause computer hardware prices to shift. Back in 2011, devastating floods in Thailand caused a hard drive shortage that cut the world output of drives down by 30 percent. Rare metals, lithium, neon, and other resources that go into the components within a computer are often affected by scarcity, market prices, and affected by conflicts, natural disasters, and supply chain issues. We’ve even seen major upsets over the last five years between a global pandemic where demand for webcams and home computer setups outpaced the supply and the popularity of cryptocurrency increased the price of high-end video cards.

This year, we’re seeing at least two factors that are likely to majorly increase hardware prices in 2025; tariffs and built-in AI.

What Tariffs Could Mean for Computing Hardware

The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) has issued some predictions based on the proposed tariffs. While some computing hardware is assembled in the United States, most computer components are manufactured overseas. The organization predicts that typical computing devices like laptops could rise as much as 46 percent in the United States. Other hardware, like computer monitors, desktops, televisions, and similar electronics are likely to see price increases as well, both for consumers and for businesses. These percentages are also on the more conservative end, with some predictions forecasting a massive 68 percent increase on computing hardware.

This means an $1800 laptop could cost a business $3024, and that’s before software, licenses, management and installation costs, and warranties.

We can’t predict exactly when this will happen, or how severe it might be, but it’s never a bad idea to plan for a worst-case scenario just to be ahead of things. If your business is lined up for hardware upgrades or you plan on purchasing new laptops, desktops, monitors, or network equipment over the next year, it’s a good idea to get that out of the way sooner rather than later.

AI and “AI” Tax

AI can do some pretty impressive things for your business. That being said, a lot of tech companies are using AI as a value-add for their existing product, and using it to justify increasing their pricing or adding additional paid features. Sometimes these features add a lot of value, and other times… not so much.

We’re going to keep seeing this trend in 2025 and frankly, we’re excited to see additional ways this novel new technology can help businesses become more lean and efficient.

Then there’s the other side of the coin. AI features tend to drive prices up whether you want the features or not, e.g., that application you use every day introduced AI, and now it costs a few dollars more per user whether you like it or not. We’re calling this the AI tax, and it’s showing up more and more in business products. Again, a lot of AI has some pretty positive results for businesses when used properly and ethically, but it might not work for every use case.

We’re starting to see modern hardware like laptops and desktops include AI-capable hardware and built-in AI services. Essentially this means that the device has specific hardware for training and hosting a localized LLM effectively, or that there are AI-based tools built into the machine’s software. In some cases, it’s just a gimmick. It’s going to be challenging to navigate this for a lot of consumers and businesses alike, but one certainty is that it will inflate prices on its own as AI is the hot new buzzword that gives manufacturers an excuse to charge more.

Supply Shortages

The semiconductor supply chain has been under strain for quite some time and that is expected to continue long into 2025. The popularity of AI and cryptocurrency have contributed to this, but a lot of other factors can cause ship shortages as well, such as issues getting the raw materials needed to manufacture the chips, as well as demand for water and electricity, both of which go into the process of creating chips. The electronics industry is surprisingly balanced on the reliance of nature, as floods, droughts, and other natural disasters or disruptions can lead to lower output. This in turn can increase prices as supply decreases and demand increases. Since we’re about to see a whole lot of businesses across the world suddenly push to upgrade older Windows 10 machines (more on this in a moment), the demand is only going to put more strain on the global system.

Businesses Should Purchase Their Hardware Sooner, Rather Than Later

In order to prevent paying a significant amount more for the equipment your business needs, it’s highly recommended to purchase computers, laptops, servers, and other hardware over the next month or so. 

If you are considering upgrading devices, equipping staff with laptops, or replacing hardware that is reaching the end of its warranty, getting ahead of the potential price increases will allow your budget to go much further.

Prepare for Windows 10 End of Life in October

Another factor that business owners need to consider is that Windows 10 is reaching end of life in October of 2025. While this doesn’t mean that the operating system will simply stop working, it will mean that devices running Windows 10 will quickly become insecure, thereby becoming risk factors for your business.

Older devices are simply not compatible with Windows 11, due to a new security protocol that requires specific hardware built into the computer. All businesses are being urged to prepare for the end of life of Windows 10, and for most that will mean replacing some older laptops and desktops with newer models. 

For a small business, this increase can be significant. Let’s use our example of the $1800 laptop from before, for a business that requires 15 new computers:

The hardware costs on their own would be $27,000 in this case. With the projected tariffs and price increases, the same order would be a staggering $45,360. Again, this isn’t taking labor, shipping, software licenses, warranties, and other hardware into account.

Capstone Works Can Help You Get the IT Hardware You Need

We help businesses throughout central Texas make smart technology decisions, and while that typically includes managing their IT for them, implementing and maintaining cybersecurity best practices, and keeping their technology running, that can also include acquiring and installing the hardware your business needs for success.

Don’t wait for prices to skyrocket, there’s so much more you could be doing with that money than spending it on computing hardware. Let’s evaluate your needs and get your hardware ordered and planned out for the next year (and beyond). Let’s get started today—just call us at (512) 343-8891 to set up an appointment.