Despite almost half of all data centers being cancelled or delayed hardware prices still go up. I suspect it’s no longer about supply contraints. The hardware corporations are colluding and price fixing to maintain their margins despite the lack of demand from data centers.

The same companies were caught doing the same thing over 20 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_industry_price_fixing

This time we do not have a government willing to go after these companies so the price increases will continue.