OVHcloud hints cloud price hikes in 2026
Cloud buyers could end up with more expensive infrastructure bills next year as the worldwide hardware supply chain for cloud infrastructure takes time to adjust to the AI demand. In a very frank way, OVHcloud CEO Octave Klaba warned that increased costs of memory and storage will probably push the cloud prices to go up between April and September 2026. The message he sent to the customers earlier this month, reflects the mounting pressure all over the semiconductor industry as chipmakers shift their production towards components built for AI accelerators.
Klaba explained that manufacturers now prioritize high margin memory for GPUs, which leaves fewer resources for standard RAM and NVMe used in everyday servers. As a result, the cost of building or refreshing any fleet of servers keeps climbing.
Data from TrendForce backs this trend with numbers that have caught many IT leaders off guard. DDR4 prices are up by 158 percent compared to late 2025, while DDR5 has jumped by more than 300 percent. Even major suppliers such as Samsung already raised some memory prices by around 60 percent.
OVHcloud’s internal models predict that a server built in December 2026 could cost as much as 35 percent more than a similar configuration produced one year earlier. Providers are trying to soften the blow by purchasing components early at current prices, yet that strategy creates its own time limit. It only delays higher costs for a few months and increases ordering pressure today.
By cloud operators repricing certain compute and storage services, enterprises will have the first impact of such changes in the middle of 2026. Analysts, however, do not foresee a massive cloud migration strategy reversal and believe that most organizations will continue their cloud adoption journey.
The majority of CIOs, in fact, are now re-evaluating their capacity planning, workload placement, and contract timelines. The attention is shifting to cost optimization rather than a retreat from cloud architectures.
Klaba’s warning lands at a moment when AI investment shows no signs of slowing down. Memory and storage now act as strategic levers in cloud economics, and companies planning migrations or AI expansions in the next two years may need to reevaluate their budgets sooner than expected.
