AI‑driven demand has squeezed the PC supply chain, forcing Nvidia, Intel, and AMD to throttle consumer chip output in favor of AI processors. The resulting bottleneck has pushed memory and storage prices higher, while ordinary users defer upgrades, holding onto older rigs. This slowdown ripples through motherboard manufacturers, who face shrinking orders as the market pivots toward data‑center workloads and expect decrease.

ASRock, already trailing its peers, now forecasts a 37% drop in shipments—from 4.3 million in 2025 to 2.7 million in 2026—while Asus warns of a 33% year‑on‑year decline, selling only 5 million units in the first half of 2026. Gigabyte and MSI project similar contractions, trimming 2026 sales to 9 million and 8.4 million respectively. this signals a shift away from consumer builds toward hardware.

With demand for AI infrastructure eclipsing that of general PCs, motherboard makers confront a shrinking market that could force consolidation or a pivot to niche boards. The 28% contraction across the big four underscores how quickly consumer hardware can be eclipsed by emerging tech trends, forcing manufacturers to rethink supply chains and product roadmaps and invest in new technologies today.