TrendForce, a research institute, recently predicted that in 2023, the global total server shipment will increase by about 3.7%, down from the forecast level of 5.1% this year.

The agency said that the slowdown was affected by three factors: first, the supply bottleneck was loosened, and the buyer adjusted the early excess orders. Second, under the influence of inflation, enterprises tended to be conservative in their capital expenditure on IT. Finally, changes in geographical situation made small-scale data centers that serve users nearby more popular.

From the perspective of DRAM capacity carried by the complete machine, TrendForce expects that with the introduction of a new generation of CPU, the cost of supporting DDR5 DRAM will also increase significantly. In order to control the price of the complete machine, the manufacturer may control the average capacity of DRAM installed. Therefore, it is predicted that the growth rate in 2023 will be only about 7%, which will fall below 10% for the first time after 2016.

However, the agency also mentioned that since the DRAM market is in a downward trend, the quotation received by Tier 1 manufacturers in the third quarter has dropped to a new historical low. Therefore, if the original manufacturer further increases the discount in the next year, it may stimulate server manufacturers to increase the installed capacity of DRAM.

As for enterprise SSD, driven by price reduction and PCIe 5.0, TrendForce predicts that the average capacity is expected to increase by 26.4% annually in 2023.