- A report issues a claim from a research firm that suggests memory prices are poised to rise another 40% to 50% by the end of January. quarter
- A separate analyst firm notes that there is a “permanent redistribution” of the supply of RAM chips to AI companies
- Data centers are expected to capture over 70% of the total supply of high-end memory chips this year
As the RAM crisis appears to be intensifying on a weekly basis, a new report makes it clear that the results could have a more far-reaching impact for consumers than you might expect, leaving a number of technologies facing price increases in a similar scenario to the disruption the pandemic caused to supply chains.
Tom’s Hardware flagged the article from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) which underscores just how bad the RAM crisis has gotten, and indeed how much worse it’s likely to get.
We’re told that, according to Counterpoint Research, memory prices are expected to rise another 40% to 50% by the end of January. quarter (March) 2026, where prices have already increased by 50% in the last quarter of 2025.
All this is happening because of the AI boom, with the memory being hoarded by the data centers required to run the increasingly popular LLMs (Large Language Models) such as ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini among others (such as DeepSeek and Kimi K2 in China).
The servers in these data centers need copious amounts of RAM, and the heavy-duty graphics cards that are also key to powering the AI responses you might use on a daily basis also require video RAM (and lots of it). Simply put, AI is very RAM-hungry, and booming AI companies shell out a lot of money so they can keep driving growth.
As the WSJ report explains, the colossal purchasing power of AI pushes aside other industries trying to acquire memory, and this can have a knock-on effect with all kinds of technology.
Meaning not just the RAM in your laptop or PC or smartphone, but consumer electronics like TVs, cars and, yes, anything with memory inside — all of which face potential price increases thanks to the boring memory supply caused by AI. (And it’s worth noting, also caused by decisions made by memory chip manufacturers some time back when there was an oversupply of inventory and production was reduced to correct it – with AI demand resulting in a massive overcorrection in the other direction).
So the talk has become that this is another situation like the pandemic, where the supply chain is hit hard and prices go up (and certain products are hard, or even impossible, to come by – we’re already seeing this happen to some extent, such as with high-end GPUs).
As Avril Wu, a senior research VP at analyst firm TrendForce, puts it: “I’ve been following the memory sector for almost 20 years, and this time is really different. It’s really the craziest time ever.”
Another analyst firm, IDC, estimates that memory (and storage) price increases will affect PC and phone sales by 9% and 5% respectively by 2026 (as these costs are inevitably passed on to consumers).
Furthermore, IDC notes that a “permanent redistribution” of supply is happening to favor AI companies, and of course it will be at the expense of, well, anything else that uses memory. The prediction is that data centers (not just those for AI processing, but all of these facilities) will consume over 70% of the total supply of advanced memory chips that will be manufactured by 2026. Ouch.
Analysis: AI will eat your RAM dinner
So is there any hope to cling to here for us beleaguered consumers in the face of the RAM-eating AI juggernaut?
Well, the big memory chip makers – Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix – have put the pedal to the metal in terms of speeding up the building of new production facilities to get more chips out. But the catch is that these plans are long-term and won’t really have any impact on the supply of RAM before 2028. Which, of course, ties in with many of the predictions we’ve heard about the RAM crisis not just for this year, but for all of 2027.
In the meantime, creative solutions can come into play, like recycling old memory chips. The WSJ points to the case of Caramon, a company that recovers RAM from decommissioned servers, which has seen the value of its sales nearly double from $500,000 to $900,000 a month in the few months since the memory crisis took hold.
Consumers can look to buy used RAM on auction sites in a similar way, or even seek memory from an old PC at home for a new build (as a stopgap).
And we could pin some hopes on the AI industry finding its own creative solutions to reduce reliance on huge chunks of RAM – see this latest development with DeepSeek.
For now, though, the AI RAM monster is very real, and it could be a punishing beast to deal with for consumers over the next few years.
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