The RAM shortage could last years
The global RAM shortage is expected to leave memory suppliers meeting only 60 percent of demand by the end of 2027, with some industry leaders warning the crisis could drag on until 2030. Explosive demand from AI workloads is the core driver, and the consequences are already show...
Terrence O'Brien, writing for The Verge, reports that the global DRAM shortage is worse than most people realize and will almost certainly outlast most short-term forecasts. Drawing on analysis from Nikkei Asia and statements from SK Group's chairman, O'Brien lays out a supply picture that should alarm anyone buying hardware in the next few years, from PC builders to enterprise AI teams planning infrastructure upgrades.
Why This Matters
This is not a temporary blip caused by a factory fire or a shipping delay. This is a structural mismatch between how fast AI is consuming memory and how slowly semiconductor fabs can be built. The math is brutal: production needs to grow 12 percent annually in both 2026 and 2027 just to close the gap, and the industry is not on track to hit that number. When the chairman of SK Group, one of the three companies that essentially controls global DRAM supply, tells Reuters the shortage could last until 2030, that is an executive with complete visibility into the supply chain making a statement that every hardware buyer should take seriously.
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The Full Story
The three companies that manufacture the overwhelming majority of the world's DRAM, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, are all working to expand capacity. But semiconductor fabs are not warehouses you can build in six months. They require years of planning, construction, and certification before a single chip rolls off the line. According to O'Brien's reporting, almost none of the new fabrication capacity from these three giants will come online until at least 2027, and some of it will not be ready until 2028.
The one exception so far is SK Hynix, which opened a new fab in Cheongju in February 2026. That is the only meaningful production increase among the three major manufacturers for this year. One new fab from one company, in a year when AI infrastructure spending is accelerating faster than almost any analyst predicted, is not going to move the needle on global supply.
Nikkei Asia's reporting makes the arithmetic painfully clear. To meet demand, the industry would need DRAM production to grow by 12 percent in 2026 and another 12 percent in 2027. That growth rate is not achievable with current manufacturing infrastructure and expansion timelines. The result, per Nikkei's projections, is that even by the end of 2027, memory makers will still only be satisfying about 60 percent of actual demand.
SK Group's chairman went even further in comments reported by Reuters in March 2026, suggesting that chip wafer shortages could persist all the way through 2030. That is not a cautious hedge from a press relations team. That is a direct statement from the person running one of the three companies that controls global memory supply.
The real-world effects are already visible. Microsoft raised prices on its Surface product line by up to $500 in April 2026, citing elevated memory and component costs. Raspberry Pi, the beloved single-board computer platform used by hobbyists and educators, raised prices by as much as $150. These are not luxury products with generous margins. These price increases reflect genuine cost pressure moving through the entire hardware supply chain.
AI is the reason demand has become this intense, this fast. Large language models, inference systems, and the GPU clusters that power them require enormous amounts of high-bandwidth memory. The previous generation of enterprise computing simply did not put this kind of sustained pressure on DRAM suppliers. The AI adoption curve proved steeper than historical demand models anticipated, and the industry is now paying for that miscalculation in the form of a shortage that could define hardware costs for the rest of this decade.
Key Details
- Memory suppliers are projected to meet only 60 percent of DRAM demand by the end of 2027, according to Nikkei Asia reporting published April 2026.
- SK Group's chairman stated in March 2026 that chip wafer shortages could last until 2030.
- The three dominant DRAM manufacturers are Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron.
- SK Hynix opened a new fabrication facility in Cheongju in February 2026, the only new production capacity among the three major players for the full year of 2026.
- Production would need to grow 12 percent in 2026 and another 12 percent in 2027 to close the demand gap.
- Microsoft raised Surface prices by up to $500 in April 2026, attributing the increases to memory and component costs.
- Raspberry Pi raised prices by up to $150 due to the same supply pressures.
What's Next
Watch for Samsung and Micron to announce updated fab timelines in their next earnings calls, because those dates will tell the market exactly how long the 40 percent supply gap will persist beyond 2027. Companies building AI infrastructure should expect memory costs to remain elevated through at least 2028, which means any hardware budget set today using 2024 pricing assumptions is already wrong. Follow related AI news for updates as this situation develops across the broader technology sector.
How This Compares
The DRAM shortage sits in stark contrast to the GPU shortage narrative that dominated AI infrastructure conversations in 2023 and 2024. At that point, Nvidia's H100 chips were the scarce resource everyone was panicking about. Nvidia responded by accelerating production and working with TSMC to expand capacity, and GPU availability, while still constrained, improved faster than many expected. RAM does not have that kind of flexible response option. The three-vendor concentration in DRAM, compared to the broader GPU supply chain, means there are fewer levers to pull and longer timelines on every single one of them.
Compare this situation to the 2021 chip shortage, which hit automotive manufacturers and consumer electronics producers hard. That shortage resolved within roughly two years as production expanded and demand patterns normalized. The AI-driven DRAM shortage is fundamentally different because the demand driver, AI model training and inference, is not slowing down. Every new model release, every new AI product launch, and every enterprise AI deployment adds more pressure to the same constrained supply. The 2021 shortage had a ceiling. This one does not have a clear one yet.
For developers and companies building on top of AI tools and platforms, the practical implication is that memory-efficient architectures are no longer just a performance optimization. They are becoming a competitive necessity. Teams that can run capable models with less RAM will have a genuine cost advantage over those that cannot, and that advantage will compound as memory prices stay high through the late 2020s.
FAQ
Q: Why is RAM so hard to get right now? A: The main reason is AI. Training and running large AI models requires enormous amounts of memory, and that demand grew far faster than the semiconductor industry could expand production. Building a new memory fabrication facility takes years, so even though manufacturers are investing heavily, supply will not catch up with demand for several years.
Q: Will RAM prices go down anytime soon? A: Not significantly, according to current industry projections. Memory makers are expected to meet only 60 percent of demand by the end of 2027, which means prices will likely remain elevated at least until new fabrication capacity from Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron comes online between 2027 and 2028.
Q: Does this shortage affect regular consumers, not just AI companies? A: Yes, directly. Microsoft already raised Surface laptop prices by up to $500 in April 2026, and Raspberry Pi raised prices by up to $150. Any device that uses DRAM, which includes laptops, desktops, servers, and single-board computers, is subject to the same cost pressures hitting the broader supply chain.
The RAM shortage is one of those slow-moving crises that does not generate daily headlines but quietly reshapes every hardware decision made across the technology industry. With SK Group warning of shortages through 2030 and production targets falling well short of demand, this is a story that will matter to developers, enterprises, and consumers for years. Subscribe to the AI Agents Daily weekly newsletter for daily updates on AI agents, tools, and automation.
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