Dell shares fell 11% on Wednesday after Barclays downgraded Dell, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) and NetApp, citing uncertainty about when enterprise customers will increase spending on AI infrastructure. HPE, Oracle and Super Micro also declined as investors questioned whether enterprise AI spending will justify the buildout of data center equipment. Barclays lowered all three ratings from buy to the equivalent of hold after what it described as a significant run and concerns about enterprise AI timing.

Barclays analysts said they had not seen a “meaningful AI inflection” in spending at Dell, HPE or NetApp. They said businesses typically allocate just 5% of IT budgets to AI, and only about a quarter of enterprise AI spending goes to hardware. The analysts attributed strong enterprise revenue more to higher memory costs than to AI adoption, saying infrastructure companies had passed those costs on to customers. They warned that normalizing and eventually declining memory prices could weigh on infrastructure-related revenue.

Data center server and backend equipment makers had gained on expectations of sustained demand for AI chips and systems. Dell had risen more than 300% this year, HPE about 160% and NetApp had doubled. Market sentiment toward AI infrastructure had weakened amid concerns about OpenAI revenue figures and rising interest rates, which could make debt-heavy construction more difficult. Oracle fell 9% on Wednesday and was down 33% for the year; neocloud provider CoreWeave plunged 15%, erasing its 2026 gains. Memory-related stocks also fell this week after China’s CXMT reported progress over the weekend on a new chip structure: Micron dropped 11% for the week, SK Hynix fell 13% in U.S. trading and Western Digital lost more than 8%.

Dell shares fell 11% on Wednesday after Barclays downgraded Dell, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) and NetApp, citing uncertainty about when enterprise customers will increase spending on AI infrastructure. HPE, Oracle and Super Micro also declined as investors questioned whether enterprise AI spending will justify the buildout of data center equipment. Barclays lowered all three ratings from buy to the equivalent of hold after what it described as a significant run and concerns about enterprise AI timing.

Barclays analysts said they had not seen a “meaningful AI inflection” in spending at Dell, HPE or NetApp. They said businesses typically allocate just 5% of IT budgets to AI, and only about a quarter of enterprise AI spending goes to hardware. The analysts attributed strong enterprise revenue more to higher memory costs than to AI adoption, saying infrastructure companies had passed those costs on to customers. They warned that normalizing and eventually declining memory prices could weigh on infrastructure-related revenue.

Data center server and backend equipment makers had gained on expectations of sustained demand for AI chips and systems. Dell had risen more than 300% this year, HPE about 160% and NetApp had doubled. Market sentiment toward AI infrastructure had weakened amid concerns about OpenAI revenue figures and rising interest rates, which could make debt-heavy construction more difficult. Oracle fell 9% on Wednesday and was down 33% for the year; neocloud provider CoreWeave plunged 15%, erasing its 2026 gains. Memory-related stocks also fell this week after China’s CXMT reported progress over the weekend on a new chip structure: Micron dropped 11% for the week, SK Hynix fell 13% in U.S. trading and Western Digital lost more than 8%.