Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2026. Read them in this 18th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By Richard Barnett, Chief Marketing Officer at Supplyframe
In 2026, global supply chains will face pressure unlike anything we’ve seen before.
The supply chain will dominate the technology sector as droughts and grid strain emerge as chokepoints. At the same time, sustainability regulations, evolving tariffs, and global sourcing complexities will force companies to rethink their strategies around procurement. Technology companies across most industries, from semiconductor manufacturing to cloud computing, will all feel an impact.
Among these, semiconductor fabrication hubs, especially in water-stressed regions like Taiwan and the southwestern U.S., will face mounting operational limits due to prolonged drought conditions and depleted reservoirs.
And as a result, water-intensive chip manufacturing processes will be forced to scale back or relocate, causing ripple effects throughout the global supply chain. These constraints are not isolated and will affect suppliers, manufacturers, and, of course, customers.
With these disruptions in mind, here are other expected trends and what companies can focus on for next year:
Verified green procurement
These changes will make procurement professionals place more focus on the durability, repairability, and reusability of components and devices. Lifecycle cost assessments will also become a larger focus.
This is driven by new legislation and frameworks, such as the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and customer RFQs, which are pushing component-level carbon and provenance data into sourcing decisions.
AI to drive the rebound
The surge in AI demand-driven by record 2025 capex-will push hyperscalers and data center operators into uncharted territory. Power availability will become the gating factor for new deployments.
However, the capex/install timing is lumpy across different aspects of the chip industry, logic, foundry, and equipment. Manufacturers will want to hedge on timing risk, not demand risk.
In 2026, we also expect to see AI at the edge reshape device roadmaps. Memory and NAND shortages are expected to continue, leading to sharp price increases, and redesigns of product roadmaps among NPU-centric phones, PCs, and industrial edge nodes refresh bill-of-materials at scale. Companies that anticipate these shifts and plan accordingly will avoid costly disruptions.
Tariffs continue to impact the supply chain
Earlier this year, Supplyframe predicted and flagged the impact of tariffs, as our intelligence platform, Commodity IQ, detected lead-time and inventory indices spiking faster than in typical cycles. The impact of tariffs continued throughout the year and were more significant than during the pandemic of 2020. Commodity IQ recorded one of the largest month-to-month Lead Time Index jumps on record as new tariffs hit, forcing companies to adjust sourcing strategies, pricing, and redesign schedules.
Looking ahead, tariffs and export controls will continue to re-route global electronics supply chains and pricing. This ongoing pressure will accelerate initiatives around diversification, nearshoring, reshoring, and efforts to create self-sufficiency in regions that are otherwise dependent on component and semiconductor supply.
To navigate these changes, supply chain teams will rely on detailed market intelligence, including reliable data on country of origin, duty exposure, and tariff-related metrics. Sourcing footprints will evolve to reduce risk, and landed-cost analysis tools will become a core part of daily decision-making.
Staying ahead
2026 will be difficult on the supply chain. We believe that companies that try to ignore these pressures will struggle, and the true winners will be those that plan and invest in resilient operations. It’s not about reacting to bottlenecks, but having insights on sourcing and technological trends to plan accordingly. That is how to stay competitive in a world that is moving faster than ever before.
