The memory chips that feed AI data centers are now pulling supply away from the rest of the electronics industry, and the effect is showing up in prices.
High-bandwidth memory, or HBM, now takes about 23% of all DRAM wafer capacity. Micron told the Hot Chips 2026 conference that HBM uses roughly three times the silicon of standard DDR5 memory and that the gap widens with every generation. Because makers earn more on HBM, they move wafers to it, and less capacity is left for the memory in phones, laptops and game consoles.
Prices are moving fast
Memory prices have roughly quadrupled over the past year. Analysts do not expect relief before new fab capacity comes online and scales up, which points to 2028. The money is already visible in results: Micron reported $41.5 billion in revenue for its fiscal third quarter of 2026, up 345% from a year earlier, while Sandisk's revenue nearly doubled to $5.9 billion on a $42 billion contract backlog.
Nvidia changes its plans
Nvidia has raised the price of its DGX Spark desktop from $3,999 to $4,699 and has warned large customers that AI server prices could rise by more than 15%. Reports say the company may cut HBM capacity in its next-generation Rubin Ultra accelerator from about 1TB to 192GB, trading raw memory for better yields, lower power draw and a workable cost per rack. TrendForce expects HBM bit shipments to grow 50% to 60% next year, which would still not be enough to match demand for AI compute.
Who ends up paying
Cloud customers absorb the first hit through higher instance prices. Consumer device makers absorb the next round, either by raising prices or by shipping less memory per machine. PC builders and phone makers that buy standard DRAM are competing for whatever wafer capacity is left over, and some are already warning of shortages into next year.
The wider lesson is that AI demand is no longer confined to data centers. Memory is a shared resource, and the race to build accelerators is setting the price of hardware used by everyone else.
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