DRAM prices surge as AI-driven memory shortage spreads to networks, consumer devices

The global memory chip shortage, driven by the relentless expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure, is now sending shockwaves well beyond data centers — raising prices for enterprise networking gear, squeezing smartphone and PC shipments, and prompting chipmakers to rethink how memory itself works.

DRAM Prices Reach Record Levels

Korea's DRAM export unit price reached $92,183 per kilogram in the first 20 days of August, up 401% from a year earlier, according to the Korea Trade Statistics Promotion Institute. That figure has jumped roughly 12.5 times since its January 2023 trough, when prices bottomed near $7,400 per kilogram. Goldman Sachs The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ↗ 0.19% expects the DRAM supply shortfall to widen from 5.0% this year to 5.9% in 2027, as high-bandwidth memory production for AI accelerators absorbs an ever-larger share of wafer capacity.biz.chosun

The shortage's cause is structural: HBM, made by stacking multiple DRAM dies, requires far more wafer input per bit than commodity memory. TrendForce projects HBM will account for 30% of total DRAM wafer input by Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix ↗ 2.61%, and Micron ↗ 2.43% by the end of next year, while contributing only 13% of total bit supply. SK Hynix President Kwak Noh-jung said last month that "2027 could be the worst shortage year in the memory industry's history".biz.chosun

Campus Networks and Consumer Devices Feel the Squeeze

Research firm Dell'Oro Group reported on Monday that DDR4 spot prices have surged 788% over the past year, forcing nearly all wireless LAN and campus switch vendors to raise prices at least once. A component that once represented about 5% of equipment costs now inflates the total bill of materials by roughly 30%. Dell'Oro expects memory shortages to shape the enterprise LAN market until at least 2028.delloro

Consumer electronics face a parallel crunch. Gartner projects worldwide PC shipments will decline 10.4% and smartphone shipments will drop 8.4% in 2026 due to soaring memory costs. J.P. Morgan estimates DRAM prices will have risen more than 400% from the start of 2024 to the end of 2026.jpmorgan+1

Samsung's Processing-in-Memory Bet

Amid the supply crisis, Samsung on Tuesday unveiled its LPDDR5X-PIM at Hot Chips 2026 — what the company calls the industry's first commercial processing-in-memory solution for on-device AI. The technology embeds computational logic alongside DRAM banks, allowing portions of AI inference calculations to occur inside the memory itself. Running Meta Platforms' ↗ 2.47% Llama 3.1 8-billion-parameter model, Samsung's edge AI accelerator achieved 81.3 tokens per second with LPDDR5X-PIM, compared with 27 tokens per second using conventional LPDDR5X. Samsung is positioning the product as a lower-cost, lower-power alternative to HBM for edge inference — a potential relief valve in a market where supply constraints show no sign of easing before 2028.kedglobal+3