UBC ARC Supporting Researchers Affected by Global Supply Chain Issues

Current disruptions in the global hardware market, caused by surging demand for high-performance memory chips such as DDR5 memory modules, are impacting all manner of computing products, from large-memory computers and servers to GPUs and accelerators, to networking components and mobile devices. This is expected to persist throughout 2026 and into 2027, and will affect the purchasing plans of UBC researchers (For additional context, please refer to the reference articles at the end of this page). 

Based on UBC ARC's latest observations, researchers can expect to see:  

• Price increases: Increases in excess of 50% have already been observed by ARC between the beginning of December 2025 and the time of this post. In practical terms, this would force a huge reduction in system RAM or storage capacity for a given grant budget.  

• Vendor response changes: As vendors strive to maintain margins while input costs rise rapidly, many have shortened the validity time of quotes and may change or reduce specifications in attempts to reduce delivery times. 

• Extended lead times: Delivery times for affected hardware have increased from two or three weeks to as long as five months, as vendors compete for limited supply chain resources.
   
• Delayed deadlines: These disruptions will likely have an impact on fulfillment deadlines specified in research grants. Researchers will need support from their institution and funders to navigate current challenges. 

What is UBC ARC doing to help?  

ARC provides expertise and support to researchers in several ways, including:

• Reducing procurement friction: By working with vendors to minimize negotiations and receive timely quotes, ARC can ensure researchers, grant administrators, and procurement officers are best positioned to do their part. 

• Streamlining vendor conversations: By leveraging relationships and experience built over time with qualified vendors, ARC is well-positioned to achieve the quickest possible outcomes with the vendor community. The Office of the Vice-President, Research and Innovation (VPRI) also established UBC as a named priority with a preferred vendor.  

• Purchase coordination: As ARC is often in conversations with multiple researchers looking to purchase similar infrastructure, there is a potential opportunity to coordinate procurement and increase purchasing power. 

• Architecting solutions: ARC can work with researchers to understand their specific workloads and design solutions that are sized to meet their research needs, compliant with UBC and Canadian security requirements, and compatible with UBC’s data centre infrastructure. Together, these steps ensure the most efficient path to implementation.
   
• Identifying existing resources: For researchers facing budget constraints or extended procurement timelines, ARC can help researchers identify other systems available to them, locally or nationally. 

• Connecting with other IT and purchasing units: ARC can help identify and inform other support units within the UBC environment to ensure that research-specific needs are accurately understood and evaluated within a research context.

Point of contact 

Contact UBC ARC at arc.support@ubc.ca to discuss your situation, and ARC will make its best efforts to help. 

This is an invitation to all UBC researchers impacted by this situation, regardless of the nature of the research or size of the need.