Memory shortages are expected to last several years, with no sign of stabilization anytime soon, as DRAM makers fail to meet demand.
Despite Creating New Production Factories, DRAM Makers Will Fail To Meet Memory Demand For Many Years
Memory supply constraints continue to grip the industry as the rise of Agentic AI has led to severe shortages. The demand is so massive that it will take years before we see any hint of relief.
The latest report from Nikkei Asia seems to agree with this matter. It is stated that DRAM manufacturers are expected to meet only 60% percent of global demand by the end of 2027. As datacenters continue to pop and gobble precious DRAM, we will continue to see higher prices, and little to no memory available in the retail channel.
A shortage of memory chips appears likely to continue until around 2027, with the top U.S. and South Korean suppliers raising DRAM production at a pace that will meet only about 60% of demand.
via Nikkei Asia
To address this matter, major DRAM manufacturers such as Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, and China-based YMTC are bringing up extra production lines and starting rapid construction of new facilities to meet the demand, but these factories won't be ready anytime soon. Just yesterday, we saw that YMTC and CXMT were working on three new fabs, one going live already, and two planned to go live later this year, which will double their total output.
But despite all of this, AI factories are pre-booking entire year's worth of supply, leading to severe shortages in the smartphone and PC segments. And the majority of the new production lines will be focused on AI-specific DRAM such as HBM.
Samsung and Co. have already dropped production of legacy DRAM such as DDR3, DDR4, and LPDDR4, further straining the market. Several companies have discontinued their OEM / PC-specific brands, Micron's Crucial is one example, and moved to more profitable pastures such as HBM and SOCAMM2. Chinese manufacturers have stepped into play to fill this gap.
As per Nikkei's report, DRAM manufacturers will have to increase their annual production by 12% between 2026 and 2027 to address this growing demand, but Counterpoint states that at the current rate, the production is only increasing by a measly 7.5%.
Counterpoint also shared its stats on how bad it is for PC vendors going forward, with memory prices continuing to climb. Remember that we had already pointed out in a previous report that memory prices won't be back to normal till at least the end of 2028, and that is looking to be the case every passing day.
News Source: The Verge
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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