AI Is Eating All the Memory Chips and It's About to Make Your Next Phone More Expensive
The global DRAM shortage caused by AI demand is getting worse, not better. Prices are at hyperinflation levels and it could last through 2027.
Every piece of technology you own uses memory chips. Your phone. Your laptop. Your car. Your smart TV. And right now, there aren't enough of them to go around because AI companies are buying all of them.
The global DRAM shortage, the worst in over a decade, is being driven almost entirely by artificial intelligence. AI data centers need massive amounts of high-bandwidth memory to train and run models. OpenAI's Stargate project alone is expected to consume up to 40 percent of global DRAM output.
The numbers are staggering. Global spending on memory chips jumped from 217 billion dollars in 2024 to 360 billion last year. This year it's expected to hit 650 billion. The LA Times is reporting that AI companies are "hoarding memory chips" and pushing prices to "hyperinflation levels."
Micron, one of only three major memory producers in the world, just announced a 200 billion dollar investment to try to break the bottleneck. But analysts say we're nowhere near the end of the shortage. Brad Gastwirth from Circular Technology says it will last through the end of 2026 and into the first half of 2027 at minimum.
What does this mean for regular people? Higher prices on basically everything electronic. Tesla, Apple, and a dozen other major companies have already warned that the memory shortage will constrain their production. Your next phone, your next laptop, your next car with a touchscreen, all of them are going to cost more because AI is eating the supply chain.
As reported by Fortune, the LA Times, and Micron.
Source: Fortune
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