Why a RAM stick costs four times what it did
The memory shortage that began in AI data centres has reached the shop shelf. Prices for consumer DRAM have climbed through 2026 as Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron move production towards high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, the stacked chips that sit beside AI accelerators. Standard 32GB DDR5 kits that sold for under $100 now trade above $400 in many markets.
Gartner forecast DRAM prices would rise 47% in 2026 because of undersupply in both mainstream and legacy memory. TrendForce data cited by industry trackers put DRAM contract prices up about 90% in the first quarter alone against the previous quarter.
Sold out, and not just for this year
SK Hynix said on its October earnings call that its HBM, DRAM and NAND capacity is essentially sold out for 2026. Micron has left the consumer memory business to concentrate on enterprise and AI customers. HBM took 23% of total DRAM wafer output by April, up from 19% in 2025, because each HBM stack consumes far more wafer area per gigabyte than ordinary memory.
That arithmetic is what squeezed the rest of the market. When the three companies that control most of global DRAM output redirect capacity to the highest-margin product, the supply of cheap memory for laptops, phones and game consoles falls.
The knock-on effects
Graphics cards show the result. Retail prices for Nvidia's RTX 5090 have been reported between $7,000 and $9,500 in some markets, well above list, as AI buyers take cards in bulk. Analysts expect pressure on phones, solid-state drives and enterprise servers to continue into 2028, with some suppliers warning the tightness could last beyond 2030 if AI demand keeps growing.
For buyers, the practical advice is unglamorous: if a machine or a memory upgrade is needed in the next year, budget for higher prices and longer lead times, and buy contract volumes early rather than at spot. For the memory makers, the cycle has turned into a windfall, at least until new fabs come online.
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