RAM Shortage to 2030
Memory suppliers now warn the DRAM shortage will likely persist until at least 2030 — SK Group’s chairman flags a ~20% wafer supply gap and Micron says demand is “significantly in excess” of available supply. DDR5 street prices have jumped roughly fourfold in places, retailers are halting desktop orders, and SSD costs are rising as NAND tightness compounds the squeeze. (tomshardware.com) (pcgamer.com)
SK Group chairman Chey Tae‑won made the remarks on the sidelines of Nvidia’s GTC in San Jose on March 16, 2026, and said SK Hynix is reviewing a potential U.S. ADR listing while seeking to stabilise memory pricing. (channelnewsasia.com) Micron has raised its fiscal‑2026 capital‑expenditure plan to more than $25 billion to expand DRAM, NAND and HBM capacity while reporting a record fiscal quarter with roughly $13.6 billion in sales for Q1 FY2026. (seekingalpha.com) Market tracker TrendForce projected industry DRAM bit output would rise about 25% in 2025, or roughly 21% when excluding Chinese suppliers, as manufacturers shift production mixes. (trendforce.com) Supplier schedules and industry slides show SK Hynix pulled a 1‑beta‑nm PC/server DRAM node from production plans to prioritise HBM3e capacity for AI accelerators. (digitimes.com) Retail price checks in mid‑March 2026 found entry‑level 32GB DDR5 kits at major U.S. sellers commonly priced around $350–$360, about 20% higher than two months earlier according to TechRadar’s March 12 pricing survey. (techradar.com) Market reports showed TLC 1TB NAND wafer prices rising from roughly $4.80 in July to about $10.70 by October 2025, and analysts including TrendForce warned client SSD prices could rise 3–8% during inventory rebuilding. (tech.yahoo.com; trendforce.com) At least three Japanese PC retailers temporarily stopped accepting built‑to‑order desktop systems in late December 2025, citing rapidly changing component availability and volatile memory pricing as the reason. (tomshardware.com)
