INDUSTRY INSIGHT
The global technology supply chain is under pressure like never before. Here’s what’s driving costs up, and how mycrecloud protects you from the fallout.
If you’ve noticed conversations in the industry about rising infrastructure costs, you’re not imagining things. Across the world, businesses that rely on cloud hosting are grappling with the same reality: the hardware that powers modern computing is more expensive, more scarce, and harder to source than it was just a few years ago.
At mycrecloud, we host Sage solutions for hundreds of businesses across the UK. We want to be transparent about what’s happening in the market — and why choosing a specialist, committed cloud partner matters more than ever.
- 43% Average server cost increase since 2022
- 2–3× Lead times for enterprise hardware
- Bllions | Global AI chip demand surge
The AI boom is consuming the world’s chips
The extraordinary rise of artificial intelligence has fundamentally disrupted the semiconductor market. Hyperscale cloud providers — Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta — are purchasing graphics processing units (GPUs) and high-performance CPUs in staggering volumes to power their AI training infrastructure. This has created a cascading effect throughout the entire supply chain.
Even conventional server hardware — the kind that reliably runs business-critical applications like Sage — has become harder to source and significantly more expensive. Manufacturers are prioritising AI-adjacent components, leaving the broader enterprise market squeezed.
“A single AI data centre build can consume more server components than an entire country’s enterprise IT refresh cycle — and that pressure ripples down to every hosting provider.”
Supply chain fragility hasn’t gone away
The disruptions that began during the pandemic years fundamentally exposed the fragility of global semiconductor supply chains. While some normalisation occurred, the underlying vulnerabilities remain. Much of the world’s advanced chip manufacturing is concentrated in a small number of facilities in East Asia, making geopolitical tensions — particularly around Taiwan — a persistent risk factor that infrastructure pricing reflects.
Energy and raw material costs have also remained elevated. The metals and rare earth elements used in server components — copper, cobalt, lithium — have seen sustained price increases. These costs compound at every stage of the supply chain and eventually land in the price of a rack of servers.
Energy costs: the hidden hardware multiplier
Running modern hardware isn’t just about buying it — it’s about powering it, cooling it, and maintaining it. Energy prices across Europe have remained volatile following the disruptions of 2022, and data centres are energy-intensive by nature. The cost of electricity, cooling infrastructure, and power redundancy systems all factor into what it takes to keep your Sage environment running reliably 24/7.
Responsible hosting providers — those who don’t cut corners on redundancy or uptime guarantees — absorb these costs in their infrastructure investment. That investment is what keeps your business running when everything else is under pressure.
What this means for businesses running Sage
For companies hosting Sage 50, Sage 200, or Sage Intacct on-premise or with a budget provider, these market pressures represent real risk. Under-resourced hosting environments cut corners on hardware refresh cycles, leaving you running on ageing infrastructure with higher failure rates and slower performance. Security patching gets delayed. Redundancy gets reduced.
This is precisely where mycrecloud is different. Rather than passing unpredictability on to you, we:
Plan our hardware procurement years in advance, locking in pricing and availability before market spikes hit
Maintain dedicated Sage-optimised infrastructure — not oversubscribed generic cloud pools
Guarantee predictable, transparent pricing so you can budget with confidence
Provide enterprise-grade redundancy, UK-based data centres, and Sage-accredited support as standard
Specialist hosting: now more valuable than ever
When the market is under pressure, generalist providers reduce quality to protect margins. Specialist providers like mycrecloud do the opposite — we double down on what we know best. Our entire infrastructure exists for one purpose: to give Sage users the fastest, most reliable, most secure cloud experience possible.
The complexity of today’s hardware market is an argument for choosing your hosting partner carefully, not for going it alone or picking whoever is cheapest today. Reliability and expertise, delivered consistently over years, is what protects your business when conditions are difficult.
Ready to move your Sage to the cloud?
Talk to our team about a tailored hosting solution. No jargon, no hidden costs — just reliable Sage hosting from specialists who understand your software.Get in touch with mycrecloud ↗
