ASUS Price Hikes and the AI Supply Chain Surge Ahead of CES 2026

The technology landscape has been changing quickly as we approach CES 2026. This is mostly because of rising demand in the AI sector and the stress it puts on global supply chains for components. As AI data centers grow, more and more resources like RAM, DRAM, SSDs, and NAND storage are being used for business applications.

These pressures have had clear effects on many types of consumer technology, but especially on handheld gaming devices and small PCs. CES is coming up soon, and there are indicators that consumers will see more changes in early 2026.

As we talk more about the rising costs of parts, ASUS has become one of the first big companies to officially tell its partners about pricing changes that are coming.

Internal messages sent out before January 5th say that ASUS will be making "strategic price adjustments" to some of its products.

The company didn't say which products would be affected or what the exact percentage increases would be, but the announcement itself is a big change in the gaming and hardware market.

We can see the outlines of what these rises might mean. ASUS, which is well-known for its gaming hardware, such the already $1,000 ROG Xbox Ally, says that these changes are coming because upstream suppliers are raising their prices sharply.

AI arms race is also having an effect on those suppliers, as production capacity is now highly skewed toward high-margin, AI-focused parts. As these manufacturers change their equipment and focus on more complex semiconductor processes, the effects on consumer products become harder and harder to prevent.

ASUS says that the rising prices are directly caused by greater investment expenditures for advanced node fabrication, long-term structural supply shortfalls, and suppliers changing their allocation.

Even though the email wasn't meant to be a public announcement, it's apparent that customers should expect big changes. We expect prices to go up across the portable industry in 2026, even though the Xbox Ally wasn't mentioned by name.

The current surge in AI has put a lot of stress on manufacturing capacity, which is something that doesn't happen very often. Making AI accelerators, data center GPUs, and high-volume server RAM is more important than making things for consumers. As demand rises, key suppliers have shifted resources away from making regular consumer DRAM and SSDs.

We've already seen firms stop or slow down lines that were made for consumers in favor of parts that make more money for businesses. When production lines are moved to AI-specific parts, the effect is predictable: everything that shares those supply chains will be harder to get and prices will go up.

Handheld gaming devices and gaming hardware in general are two of the most affected groups.

If we combine a shrinking supply with rising material costs, we come to the same conclusion that many analysts have reached: prices for existing handhelds are likely to go up, and new devices that come out in 2026 may cost a lot more than they do now.

We can see that ASUS's move is not just a one-time thing, but an indication of bigger changes in the industry. We should anticipate other makers of portable gaming consoles, gaming laptops, and small PCs to operate in the same way.

The trend that started in late 2025 is currently picking up speed, which means that 2026 could be one of the most expensive years yet for handheld hardware.

We might be in for an even harder time with prices if 2025 was a hard year. Many experts think that relief won't entirely come until new fabs are built, which could happen in 2027 or 2028. Until then, increased demand and a lack of supply will keep prices going up in many categories.

ASUS started making these changes on January 5th, so we'll soon learn just how their price changes affect things. CES 2026 will probably make things clearer about how deep these price hikes go, whether the Xbox Ally devices get new price tags, and how competitors react. The handheld gaming business will continue to be one of the most directly affected areas as AI changes the manufacturing industry.