Mac Mini shortage reveals AI agent builders' hardware appetite

Apple's compact desktop machines face 12-week wait times as professional developers bulk-buy them for AI agent infrastructure—a use case absent from demand forecasts six months ago. This mirrors 2021's GPU shortage: infrastructure builders treating consumer hardware as enterprise-grade compute. Apple either underestimated the segment's scale or deprioritized it in production planning, leaving revenue uncaptured while the market outpaces supply.