The hardware sub-industry manufactures physical computing devices — personal computers, servers, storage systems, networking equipment, and electronic components. Apple dominates by market cap, while Dell and HP serve enterprise and commercial segments. The shift of compute workloads to the cloud has pressured traditional PC and server demand, but AI infrastructure buildouts are driving a new supercycle in specialized server and networking hardware.
PC shipment data from IDC and Gartner are leading indicators. Watch enterprise server attach rates for AI accelerators. Storage demand from AI training datasets is a structural tailwind for STX and WDC.