Chipmakers laughing all the way to the vault as memory prices go stratospheric
- ID
- 17225
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 24 Aug 2026, 9:40 PM
- Fetched
- 24 Aug 2026, 9:53 PM
- Provider
- The Register
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://www.theregister.com/systems/2026/08/24/chipmakers-laughing-all-the-way-to-the-vault-as-memory-prices-go-stratospheric/5291690
- Source URL
- https://www.theregister.com/headlines.atom
Summary
- Score
- 6.5
- Created
- 24 Aug 2026, 9:54 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_codersai_ml_learnerssaas_founders
What happened
Gartner projects semiconductor revenue will nearly double to $1.6 trillion in 2026, driven almost entirely by memory chips—DRAM revenue up 246.6% and NAND up 371.9%—as Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix prioritize high-margin AI server memory over mainstream chips. The resulting shortfall has pushed up PC and smartphone prices, with the phone market forecast to shrink 15% this year, and Samsung warns the memory crunch could last through 2028.
Why it matters
If you are budgeting for hardware, cloud GPU instances, or edge devices in 2026-2028, expect sustained high memory costs to flow through to your cloud bills and device procurement. Founders shipping AI products should model higher inference infrastructure costs and longer hardware refresh cycles, not assume a near-term price reversion.
Discussion angle
How much of your current cloud and hardware spend is memory-bound, and what would a multi-year high-memory-price environment change about your architecture choices—e.g., quantization, smaller models, or on-device inference?