(Yicai) July 6 -- Intel has raised the prices of its central processing units, the US chipmaker told Yicai yesterday. Upstream cost pressures, which have been building for more than six months, are now spreading from memory chips such as DRAM and NAND to processors and are ultimately being passed on to the personal computer market, industry analysts said.

The price adjustments were made following Intel’s regular monitoring of the supply chain and related costs in response to changing market dynamics, the Santa Clara-based firm said.

The move is one of Intel's rare CPU price increases in recent years. Analysts said surging demand for artificial intelligence computing power is reshaping the CPU market, where prices have historically tended to decline over time.

The increases do not apply across the entire product lineup but are concentrated on the more popular items, according to a survey of Intel product prices. The recommended retail price of the consumer-grade Core Ultra 7 270K Plus has risen by about 16 percent, while the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus has jumped roughly 15 percent.

The price of server-grade CPUs have gone up even more. The price of Intel's flagship Xeon 6980P has soared by USD1,495 per chip, or around 12 percent. The selective price increases reflect robust demand from the AI server market, which continues to absorb industry resources, analysts said.

After the sharp climb in memory prices, higher CPU prices are putting further pressure on PC makers. In February, Lenovo Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Yang Yuanqing told Yicai that memory prices had surged as much as 50 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, with gains widening in the first quarter of this year and potentially doubling. "It's not just memory products, even CPUs are getting more expensive," he added.

CPU price increases would have a more limited impact than memory but would still add to manufacturers' cost burdens, Ye Maosheng, chief analyst at UK market analyst firm Omdia, said at the time.

Earlier industry forecasts suggested that Intel and US semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices would raise the prices of their CPUs by between 10 percent and 25 percent in the second quarter, pushing up bill-of-materials costs and prompting PC manufacturers to place orders earlier to protect profit margins.

Yicai recently visited a number of computer stores and found that PC prices from Lenovo, HP, Asus and Acer had generally increased, with some models rising by more than CNY1,000 (USD140). Apple has also hiked the prices of some MacBook Pro models by between CNY900 and CNY2,000, and the starting price of the MacBook Pro equipped with the M5 Pro chip has jumped from CNY17,999 (USD2,650) to CNY19,999.

Several institutions expect CPU prices to rise by a further 8 percent to 10 percent in the second half, suggesting cost pressures across the PC industry are unlikely to ease in the near term.

"It depends on who can secure more supply at a more competitive cost," Yang told Yicai previously. He added that Beijing-based Lenovo's scale, diversified supply chain and long-standing relationships with suppliers have become key competitive advantages in the current cycle.

2026 should be a pivotal year for the PC industry, with supply chain resilience and the ability to secure core components such as CPUs and memory emerging as major competitive differentiators, US market research firm IDC said. Companies with products spanning a full price range are likely to be better positioned to withstand market volatility.

Editor: Kim Taylor