Micron Technology Inc. said its memory chip shortage worsened last quarter and is expected to last all year and into 2027 due to a surge in demand for components needed for artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Micron Technology Inc. said its memory chip shortage worsened last quarter and is expected to last all year and into 2027 due to a surge in demand for components needed for artificial intelligence infrastructure.
«The shortage that we’re seeing is truly unprecedented,» Micron Executive Vice President Manish Bhatia told Bloomberg. The chipmaker held a groundbreaking ceremony for a $100 billion manufacturing site near Syracuse, US, on Friday.
According to him, the high-bandwidth memory needed to build AI accelerators «consumes such a large portion of the available power in the industry that it leaves a huge deficit for the traditional part of the industry, for phones or PCs.»
Bhatia added that PC and smartphone makers have joined the queue to try to reserve memory chips beyond 2026, and autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots will further stimulate demand for these components.
Global smartphone shipments could shrink by 2,1% this year as a shortage of memory chips leads to rising costs and production cuts, industry analyst Counterpoint Research estimated in December. PC makers including Dell Technologies Inc. have also warned they are likely to be hit by the ongoing shortage.
The world’s three largest memory chip companies — Micron, SK Hynix Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. — saw their stock prices soar in 2025, buoyed by the AI boom. SK Hynix said it had sold out all of its chip inventory in 2026, while Micron said its AI memory semiconductors were also sold out this year.
Micron previously announced its decision to exit the Crucial brand. Instead of selling RAM and storage to consumers, it decided to focus on AI data centers.
The global RAM market is currently experiencing an unprecedented crisis, caused by the explosive demand for artificial intelligence chips. DRAM prices have increased by 171,8% in a year and have even exceeded the growth rate of the value of gold. A 64GB DDR5 memory kit already costs over $500 — more expensive than a PlayStation 5 game console.
dev.ua looked into what the DRAM shortage threatens for ordinary users, who is to blame, and how long the crisis will last.
