February 17, 2026 One of the world’s biggest manufacturers of hard drives, Western Digital, says it has already sold out its hard drive capacity for 2026, with most supply locked in by major customers months ahead of schedule. The shortage is being driven largely by surging demand from artificial intelligence companies, raising the prospect of higher prices and tighter supply for consumers.
The storage maker disclosed on a recent earnings call that nearly all of its output for the year has been allocated, despite more than 10 months remaining. Chief executive Irving Tan said the bulk of that capacity has gone to a small group of top clients, several of which have already secured agreements stretching into 2027 and 2028.
The development highlights how AI infrastructure is reshaping hardware markets. Data centres powering large models require vast amounts of storage for training datasets, inference pipelines and logs, pushing enterprise buyers to lock in multi-year supply and crowding out smaller customers.
Western Digital said consumer products now account for a minimal share of its business. The imbalance is already feeding into broader component shortages, with memory and storage markets tightening alongside rising AI investment.
Hardware supply chains have been under pressure for more than a year as demand for chips, memory and storage accelerates. PC makers have repeatedly raised component prices, while gaming and consumer electronics firms have warned that infrastructure demand could delay future launches.
For buyers, the implications are limited inventory and higher costs. With production increasingly pre-allocated years in advance, availability for consumer drives could remain constrained unless AI spending cools or new manufacturing capacity comes online.
