Lenovo is hiking PC prices again — and the AI frenzy has gone from hype to headache

Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition — (Image credit: Future)

Lenovo has already been warning that the RAM price crisis will force the company to raise prices of PCs, tablets and Motorola phones. Now, it seems set for March, as CRN reports that the company’s North America channel chief has warned partners to “place orders as soon as possible.”

Wade McFarland, VP of the North America channel at Lenovo, has spoken out about how the ongoing AI data center buildout is causing the company to “continue to adjust” prices, and that there’s “no way around it.” His warning is simple: “place orders as soon as possible,” and the deadline given to distributors is by February 25 to get their orders in.

So from next month, the “AI PC” premium is going to hit again, and I’m tired of this happening over and over again.

The AI tax is a killer

AWS data center — (Image credit: Amazon)

It’s getting diabolical. We’re barely two months into the year and I’ve lost count of how many price increase/stock issue stories I’ve had to write. The AI gold rush is hoovering up all the DRAM and NAND flash chips, and in the end, we’re left picking up the overinflated tab.

From the perspective of someone who just wants cool tech, I really hope this bubble pops. But it’s not just me saying that. “We're waiting for the AI bubble to pop,” an anonymous spokesperson from a small PC manufacturer told Wired.

This is a similar sentiment to what I heard across many companies at CES 2026, and people are getting tired of it — not just from the “AI is making everything more expensive” side of things, but also just getting serious feature fatigue.

In Pew Research Center's late 2025 report, for the first time, a growing majority of Americans are more concerned than excited about AI at 50% (a sharp increase from 37% in 2021). The reason is not about the idea of “Skynet” killer robots anymore; it’s about the erosion of human skills.

53% believe AI will worsen human creativity, and 50% believe it will harm our ability to form meaningful relationships. I mean, you can see that from the subtext of reading stories, like using ChatGPT to help with small talk.

And the rest of the stats that I found continue to paint a worsening picture. The trust gap is huge, with 25% of respondents saying the benefits of AI are “high,” while 57% say the risks to society are “high.”

In fact, there’s almost a mirroring of sorts to the K-shaped economy we find ourselves in — where the rich are getting richer, and the poor get poorer. 54% of low-income respondents to the Edelman Trust Barometer believe they will be “left behind” by generative AI, and 55% of Americans told Ipsos that AI will lead to income inequality and a polarized society (up nine points from 2023).

Can this bubble just burst already?

Sam Altman of OpenAI — (Image credit: Getty Images)

Put simply, we’re hearing about all of these benefits AI will give us, but not seeing them. We’re feeling the damage to our bank balances, and seeing people like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressing AI’s environmental impact by saying “it also takes a lot of energy to train a human” certainly doesn’t help.

Like I’ve been saying (just so you know I’m not fully a doomer), I don’t believe that AI, in terms of the benefits it could provide in healthcare and society, is a bubble. I believe that this current idea of generative AI is a bubble — generated by outrageous spending commitments that companies will not be able to keep up with. And the burst could very well be a global reset to focus on the priorities of social good.

Sora 2 screenshots — (Image credit: Future)

Because right now, we have something that takes away from human creativity and connection, generates slop like The Rock wrestling a baby (no joke) and is forced down our throats in OS features that have no real reason for being.

And the cost of this bet is significant — possibly up to $1.5 trillion in new debt by 2030 to complete the global AI infrastructure needed. It’s why you’ve seen stocks of the Magnificent 7 cool recently, because investors are looking at this money wall and asking, “wait, do we actually get our money back?”

But to you, the end result is being priced out for consumer tech. We’re paying for this. A rebalancing needs to come. We can’t wait for 2028 (the general prediction of when companies think this could end).

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