RAM is about to get more expensive again. Industry insiders are warning of “meaningful price increases” before the end of 2026, and one chipmaker expects the current memory shortage to drag on for another three years.
Price increases
The warning came from Jukan, an analyst at Citrini Research, in a post on X. According to Jukan, suppliers’ early talks on DRAM contract pricing for the fourth quarter of 2026 “point to meaningful price increases.” The analyst tied that to strengthening demand, particularly from U.S. cloud service providers (CSPs).
CSPs are the companies behind Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. Google Cloud Platform falls in the same group.
Impact on SSDs
The DRAM crunch is spilling over into storage too. Jukan said the shortage is limiting some NAND suppliers’ ability to support enterprise solid-state drives, which are expected to stay undersupplied through 2026.
Enterprise SSDs are high-performance drives built for nonstop 24/7 workloads. You’ll find them in data centers and cloud infrastructure rather than in a camera bag. Still, when chipmakers prioritize those high-margin products, consumer storage tends to feel the squeeze.
Three more years
In a separate post, Jukan pointed to a report from The Wire China about Chinese memory maker YMTC. An unnamed YMTC employee told the outlet his employer expects the global memory shortage to last at least three more years. He added that YMTC has raised its chip prices and shifted capacity toward higher-margin chips.
What we think
The rapid growth of AI and data centers is driving this shortage. These posts focus on DRAM and SSDs, but the impact reaches much further. Nearly every electronic product contains some form of RAM.
Several camera manufacturers have already raised prices because of the memory crisis, and plenty of other consumer electronics have followed. If these industry reports are right, things will get worse before they get better. If a new SSD or memory card is already on your list, buying sooner rather than later looks like the safer bet.
