RAM is getting more expensive than ever, with DDR4 increasing 24% in the last quarter and Intel’s CEO has reportedly said we have another 2 or 3 years of this.
- Intel CEO has said AI hardware will be in short supply for the next 2-3 years
- Of course, this refers to the current memory crisis, and consumers will receive less attention than AI players.
- A new report from Barclays also shows that the RAM contract price has increased by 24% over the last quarter for DDR4 (and 20% for DDR5)
Need more fuel to stoke the idea that the RAM crisis is here to stay? That’s certainly not the case, but sadly we’ve had a couple more indications that the memory shortage will last a depressingly long time, with the latest to weigh in being Intel’s CEO.
Wccftech reports that Intel’s Lip-Bu Tan spoke in Singapore at the Asia Future Forward event, a conference hosted by DBS Bank, where the CEO discussed his thoughts on trends with AI, including the amount of memory it is consuming.
As noted by Theresa Perrin in
Latest videos ofTechnologyRadar
While the CEO is talking directly about RAM (as well as GPUs and, to some extent, CPUs) used in data centers for AI applications, the fact that the AI industry is going to have supply shortages for perhaps the next three years means that consumer RAM will be even more scarce on the ground. It’s no secret that the increased profits to be made by serving the AI industry mean that this memory is the priority for chipmakers.
Wccftech also noted another post on
Barclays further noted that one of the big memory chip makers, Micron, will see its RAM supply levels remain limited until 2028. In other words, we can expect memory supply to remain a major issue for the next two years, and “until” 2028 means this year is included in the gloomy prediction.
Analysis: Even more nuggets of doom, and then there’s the rise of the robots
The reported increases in RAM contract price according to Barclays match what we’ve seen in retail over the past few months, with some notable jumps in the price of DDR5 memory (which in Germany has reached a ridiculous 544% higher than the price it was before the RAM crisis began last July).
What Barclays and Intel’s CEO are telling us now is that this kind of pain is likely to continue, and that RAM supply will remain frustratingly short through 2029. Unfortunately, these kinds of forecasts are becoming more common, and almost everyone’s opinion seems to align with the idea that the RAM crisis will persist until the end of the decade.
At the very least, we can expect 2027 to be a repeat of this year, meaning further price increases for memory and other components such as GPUs, and 2028 is likely to follow a similar line. In fact, Micron has said as much himself, while letting us know that robots (or ‘physical AI’) will consume a lot of RAM in the future.
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to receive news, reviews and opinions from our experts in your feeds.
The best laptops for all budgets
Post Comment