However, he noted, “CPUs are not being cannibalized by GPUs. Instead, they have become ‘chokepoints’ in AI infrastructure.” For instance, CPUs such as Granite Rapids are essential in GPU clusters, and for handling agentic AI workloads and orchestrating distributed inference. How pricing might increase for enterprises Ultimately, rapid demand for higher-end offerings resulted in foundry shortages of Intel 10/7 nodes, Bickley noted, which represent the bulk of the company’s production volume. He pointed out that it can take up to three quarters for new server wafers to move through the fab process, so Intel will be “under the gun” until at least Q2 2026, when it projects an increase in chip production. Meanwhile, manufacturing capacity for Xeon is currently sold out for 2026, with varying lead times by distributor, while custom silicon programs are seeing lead times of 6 to 8 months, with some orders rolling into 2027, Bickley said. In the data center, memory is the key bottleneck, with expected price increases of more than 65% year over year in 2026 and up to 25% for NAND Flash, he noted. Some specific products have already seen price inflation of over 1,000% since 2025, and new greenfield capacity for memory is not expected until 2027 or 2028. Moor’s Sag was a little more optimistic, forecasting that, on the client side, “memory prices will probably stabilize this year until more capacity comes online in 2027.” How enterprises can prepare Supplier diversification is the best solution for enterprises right now, Sag noted. While it might make things more complex, it also allows data center operators to better absorb price shocks because they can rebalance against suppliers who have either planned better or have more resilient supply chains.

The SATA 1.0 interface made its debut in 2003. It was developed by a consortium consisting of Intel, Dell, and storage vendors like Seagate and Maxtor. It quickly advanced to SATA III in 2009, but there never was a SATA IV. There was just nibbling around the edges with incremental updates as momentum and emphasis shifted to PCI Express and NVMe. So is there any life to be had in the venerable SATA interface? Surprisingly, yes, say the analysts. “At a high level, yes, SATA for consumer is pretty much a dead end, although if you’re storing TB of photos and videos, it is still the least expensive option,” said Bob O’Donnell, president and chief analyst with TECHnalysis Research. Similarly for enterprise, for massive storage demands, the 20 and 30 TB SATA drives from companies like Seagate and WD are apparently still in wide use in cloud data centers for things like cold storage. “In fact, both of those companies are seeing recording revenues based, in part, on the demand for these huge, high-capacity low-cost drives,” he said. “SATA doesn’t make much sense anymore. It underperforms NVMe significantly,” said Rob Enderle, principal analyst with The Enderle Group. “It really doesn’t make much sense to continue make it given Samsung allegedly makes three to four times more margin on NVMe.” And like O’Donnell, Enderle sees continued life for SATA-based high-capacity hard drives. “There will likely be legacy makers doing SATA for some time. IT doesn’t flip technology quickly and SATA drives do wear out, so there will likely be those producing legacy SATA products for some time,” he said.

“DCN is increasingly treated as an end-to-end operating model that standardizes connectivity, security policy enforcement, and telemetry across users, the middle mile, and cloud/application edges,” Sanchez said. Dell’Oro defines DCN as platforms and services that deliver consistent connectivity, policy enforcement, and telemetry from users, across the WAN, to distributed cloud and application edges spanning branch sites, data centers and public clouds. The category is gaining relevance as hybrid architectures and AI-era traffic patterns increase the operational penalty for fragmented control planes. DCN buyers are moving beyond isolated upgrades and are prioritizing architectures that reduce operational seams across connectivity, security and telemetry so that incident response and change control can follow a single thread, according to Dell’Oro’s research. What makes DCN distinct is that it links user-to-application experience with where policy and visibility are enforced. This matters as application delivery paths become more dynamic and workloads shift between on-premises data centers, public cloud, and edge locations. The architectural requirement is eliminating handoffs between networking and security teams rather than optimizing individual network segments. Where DCN is growing the fastest Cloud/application edge is the fastest-growing DCN pillar. This segment deploys policy enforcement and telemetry collection points adjacent to workloads rather than backhauling traffic to centralized security stacks. “Multi-cloud remains a reality, but it is no longer the durable driver by itself,” Sanchez said. “Cloud/application edge is accelerating because enterprises are trying to make application paths predictable and secure across hybrid environments, and that requires pushing application-aware steering, policy enforcement, and unified telemetry closer to workloads.”

Edged US is targeting a narrow but increasingly valuable lane of the hyperscale AI infrastructure market: high-density compute delivered at speed, paired with a sustainability posture centered on waterless, closed-loop cooling and a portfolio-wide design PUE target of roughly 1.15. Two recent announcements illustrate the model. In Aurora, Illinois, Edged is developing a 72-MW facility purpose-built for AI training and inference, with liquid-to-chip cooling designed to support rack densities exceeding 200 kW. In Irving, Texas, a 24-MW campus expansion combines air-cooled densities above 120 kW per rack with liquid-to-chip capability reaching 400 kW. Taken together, the projects point to a consistent strategy: standardized, multi-building campuses in major markets; a vertically integrated technical stack with cooling at its core; and an operating model built around repeatable designs, modular systems, and readiness for rapidly escalating AI densities. A Campus-First Platform Strategy Edged US’s platform strategy is built around campus-scale expansion rather than one-off facilities. The company positions itself as a gigawatt-scale, AI-ready portfolio expanding across major U.S. metros through repeatable design targets and multi-building campuses: an emphasis that is deliberate and increasingly consequential. In Chicago/Aurora, Edged is developing a multi-building campus with an initial facility already online and a second 72-MW building under construction. Dallas/Irving follows the same playbook: the first facility opened in January 2025, with a second 24-MW building approved unanimously by the city. Taken together with developments in Atlanta, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Des Moines, Kansas City, and Phoenix, the footprint reflects a portfolio-first mindset rather than a collection of bespoke sites. This focus on campus-based expansion matters because the AI factory era increasingly rewards developers that can execute three things at once: Lock down power and land at scale. Standardize delivery across markets. Operate efficiently while staying aligned with community and regulatory expectations. Edged is explicitly selling the second

The U.S. data center market is entering 2026 with fundamentals that remain unmatched across commercial real estate, but the nature of the dominant constraint has shifted. Demand is no longer gated by capital, connectivity, or even land. It is gated by the ability to deliver very large blocks of power, on aggressive timelines, at a predictable cost. According to the CBRE 2026 U.S. Real Estate Market Outlook as overseen by Gordon Dolven and Pat Lynch, the sector is on track to post another record year for leasing activity, even as vacancy remains at historic lows and pricing reaches all-time highs. What has changed is the scale at which demand now presents itself, and the difficulty of meeting it. Large-Block Leasing Rewrites the Economics AI-driven workloads are reshaping leasing dynamics in ways that break from prior hyperscale norms. Where 10-MW-plus deployments once commanded pricing concessions, CBRE now observes the opposite behavior: large, contiguous blocks of capacity are commanding premiums. Neocloud providers, GPU-as-a-service platforms and AI startups, many backed by aggressive capital deployment strategies, are actively competing for full-building and campus-scale capacity.  For operators, this is altering development and merchandising strategies. Rather than subdividing shells for flexibility, owners increasingly face a strategic choice: hold buildings intact to preserve optionality for single-tenant, high-density users who are willing to pay for scale. In effect, scale itself has become the scarce asset. Behind-the-Meter Power Moves to the Foreground For data centers, power availability meaning not just access, but certainty of delivery, is now the defining variable in the market.  CBRE notes accelerating adoption of behind-the-meter strategies as operators seek to bypass increasingly constrained utility timelines. On-site generation using natural gas, solar, wind, and battery storage is gaining traction, particularly in deregulated electricity markets where operators have more latitude to structure BYOP (bring your own power) solutions. 

“It’s ideal for remote, sparse, or sensitive regions,” said Manish Rawat, analyst at TechInsights. “Key use cases include cloud-to-cloud links, data center replication, government, defense, and disaster recovery workloads. It supports rapid or temporary deployments and prioritizes fewer customers with high capacity, strict SLAs, and deep carrier integration.” Adoption, however, is expected to largely depend on the sector. For governments and organizations operating highly critical or sensitive infrastructure, where reliability and security outweigh cost considerations, this could be attractive as a redundancy option. “Banks, national security agencies, and other mission-critical operators may consider it as an alternate routing path,” Jain said. “For most enterprises, however, it is unlikely to replace terrestrial connectivity and would instead function as a supplementary layer.” Real-world performance Although satellite connectivity offers potential advantages, analysts note that questions remain around real-world performance. “TeraWave’s 6 Tbps refers to total constellation capacity, not per-user throughput, achieved via multiple optical inter-satellite links and ground gateways,” Rawat said. “Optical crosslinks provide high aggregate bandwidth but not a single terabit-class pipe. Performance lies between fiber and GEO satellites, with lower intercontinental latency than GEO but higher than fiber.” Operational factors could also affect network stability. Jitter is generally low, but handovers, rerouting, and weather conditions can introduce intermittent performance spikes. Packet loss is expected to remain modest but episodic, Rawat added.