Lead times of nine to 12 or even 18 months. Costs rising by 35%, 45%, even 50% to 200%. More than halfway through 2026, the market for IT infrastructure that’s crucial for enterprise projects, including those involving artificial intelligence, is strapped.
, VP analyst at , and networking devices. But while the source of the problem may be new, supply chain disruptions are far from unprecedented.
As a result, industry insiders are not short on advice on how best to deal with the situation, with tips including making better use of what you have, considering options beyond your usual scope, and lots of planning with your vendors and internal finance teams.
State of the problem
Just how bad is the current supply chain problem? “It’s pretty bad,” says . Companies accustomed to 30- to 45-day , senior vice president of vendor management with the global distributor and value-added reseller we’re hitting is just beginning. It’s going to be longer and bigger than the training wave,” he says. “It’s impacting everything, from AI infrastructure to the traditional stuff that’s standing up your virtualization and cloud infrastructure.”
No vendors seem to be immune, not even the likes of Cisco, which makes its own , its latest quarter.
Still, Cisco must deal with the same shortages as other vendors.
“I wouldn’t say any company is faring better than others,” says (WWT). “There may be nuances that some suppliers are employing to balance it to some extent, but I fail to recognize a supplier that’s not having almost the same issue.”
Cloud storage vendor Backblaze is one company that’s facing equipment cost and availability issues. “There are different types of shortages occurring in multiple places, all driven by unusual market demands, really by just a handful of very large buyers,” says is constantly forecasting and monitoring demand triggers, Rowell says. That involves close alignment with the sales team to forecast client needs, as well as paying attention to historical trendlines to predict upcoming demand from new deals and growth with existing clients. But the company also looks for “unnatural market-related triggers” that would cause a spike in utilization.
With hyperscalers buying up vast amounts of capacity, “This is definitely an unnatural phase,” Rowell says. “For about for the last 12 months, I would say there’s been somewhere between a 15% and 30% uptick in costs,” especially in terms of servers and compute disks.
On the positive side, at least for Backblaze, the company is also seeing an uptick in business from an interesting source: AI companies. “We reported in the last earnings period a 70% increase in AI companies using our platform,” says , then bringing them back in-house when appropriate. “Have a better understanding of what absolutely has to be on prem and what can be in the cloud,” he says.
That’s good advice, says Backblaze’s Thomas. When it comes to AI, think about , Anderson says. WWT also provides capacity in its own lab so customers can get started with proof-of-concept projects. “Don’t just throw your hands up. We can help you find access to capacity,” Anderson says. “Production-scale AI may be delayed, but don’t let that derail your strategy.”
Colocation providers may likewise be an option, especially if enterprises are struggling to acquire high-end networking equipment. Networking is a key value proposition for colocation providers, in that they have built-in connections to various cloud providers and other ecosystem players.
Equinix, for example, has 280 data centers in 77 metropolitan areas, says .
If your plans include installing GPU environments in your own data center, WWT advises you not to delay. “We’re telling customers, you need to talk with us and get that designed, get that ordered, because it will take quite a bit of time until it actually ships and we’re able to install it,” Anderson says.
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