Chip Crisis Forces US PC Giants HP, Dell, Acer, Asus to Pivot to China

The global semiconductor shortage just rewrote the supply chain playbook. Major US PC manufacturers—HP, Dell, Acer, and Asus—are now turning to China in a scramble for critical components, a move that cuts through traditional geopolitical tensions and bypasses strained Western suppliers.

The Great Pivot

Forget the old rulebook. When production lines stall, corporate survival instincts kick in. These tech titans aren't just dipping a toe in the water; they're diving headfirst into alternative sourcing channels to keep their hardware flowing. It's a stark lesson in realpolitik for global manufacturing—when chips are down, allegiances shift faster than market sentiment.

Supply Chain Realpolitik

The pivot reveals a brutal truth: in a crunch, efficiency trumps ideology. The move signals a potential long-term recalibration of tech supply networks, proving that necessity doesn't just mother invention—it also fathers some very uncomfortable partnerships. One analyst's 'strategic diversification' is another's 'dependence reshuffle.'

Finance's cynical take? Wall Street will applaud the quarterly numbers while quietly ignoring the geopolitical risk fine print—until the next supply shock hits. For now, the market only cares that the boxes ship. The rest is just background noise.

U.S. PC manufacturers look to China for memory chips amid global shortage.

The report noted that HP has begun plans to qualify Chinese memory chip Maker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) as a suitable option in its broader objective to expand its supply alternatives.

The Asian news outlet cited people familiar with the matter and reported that the U.S. PC maker intends to monitor the chip crisis till mid-2026, after which it WOULD likely start sourcing random access memory (DRAM) from CXMT for the first time if dynamic supplies remain tight and chip prices continue to surge.

The report also noted that Texas-based PC maker Dell was exploring CXMT’s dynamic random-access memory products amid concerns about rising chip costs throughout 2026.

Acer also joined the bandwagon and has begun exploring memory chips that Chinese contract suppliers purchase. The outlet also mentioned that Asus has asked its Chinese production partners to help source memory chips for some of its projects.

The global chip shortage has caused a massive surge in chip prices in recent times. The spike is threatening product launches and increasing production costs across the tech industry, especially for electronic manufacturers producing PCs, mobile phones, laptops, and electric vehicles.

A previous report by Cryptopolitan highlighted that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix cited the ongoing AI boom as the root cause of the global chip shortage.

According to the publication, chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix raised the alarm, stating that manufacturers of everyday devices such as PCs and smartphones will face a growing semiconductor shortage.

The chip makers said that the growing demand for sophisticated AI chips and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) is affecting supply chains for everyday electronic devices and could disrupt global supply and pricing. 

Chip makers are shifting away from making conventional DRAM chips and allocating resources to innovate and improve AI chips. Samsung’s mobile business profit declined by 10% due to the chip shortage, according to the report.

SK Hynix held its earnings conference call for the fourth quarter (Q4) and full-year 2025 on January 28, 2026.  The company said that during the earnings call, the shortage and surging chip supply have also led some manufacturers to adjust their product offerings. The chip maker reported record operating profits worth 19.2 trillion won (approx. $13.5 billion) in Q4 2025. The record profit was primarily driven by surging demand for AI-specific High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). 

Global chip shortage hits Apple amid growing iPhone demand

Towards the end of January, Apple reported its first-quarter earnings, revealing that the ongoing chip shortage was affecting the development of new iPhones.

“The constraints that we have are driven by the availability of the advanced nodes that our SoCs are produced on, and at this time, we’re seeing less flexibility in the supply chain than normal,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said.

Cryptopolitan also previously reported that Taiwan’s MediaTek also cautioned that the growing demand for AI products is putting intense pressure on global chip supply chains, causing surging prices.

MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai said during the company’s quarterly earnings conference call that the global supply chain is struggling to meet growing demand in 2026 due to AI. He also highlighted that the company intends to adjust its pricing to reflect rising supply chain costs and allocate supply across products based on overall profitability.

Want your project in front of crypto’s top minds? Feature it in our next industry report, where data meets impact.