Samsung says RAM prices will possible result in worth hikes quickly

Samsung says AI information center-fueled RAM shortage might increase the corporate’s costs. Wonjin Lee, Samsung’s international advertising and marketing chief, sounded the alarm in an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday at CES 2026. As just lately as early December, Samsung told Reuters that it was monitoring the market however would not touch upon pricing. So, the change of tune will be seen as a deliberate sign to melt the bottom forward of an official announcement.

“There’s going to be points round semiconductor provides, and it will have an effect on everybody,” Samsung’s Lee stated. “Costs are going up whilst we converse. Clearly, we do not wish to convey that burden to the shoppers, however we will be at some extent the place we’ve got to truly think about repricing our merchandise.”

The global RAM shortage is the results of AI information facilities gobbling up high-bandwidth reminiscence. Reminiscence producers have shifted their output priorities to satisfy that demand, resulting in a snowball impact the place even the low-bandwidth RAM present in vehicles is affected.

“AI workloads are constructed round reminiscence,” Sanchit Vir Gogia, CEO of Greyhound Analysis, told NPR in late December. “AI has modified the character of demand itself. Coaching and inference techniques require giant, persistent reminiscence footprints, excessive bandwidth, and tight proximity to compute. You can’t dial this down with out breaking efficiency.”

It has been greater than three years since ChatGPT launched and kicked off the AI craze. Throughout that point, corporations have hyped chatbots and different generative AI instruments as a know-how that may take us to the promised land, making life simpler as machine studying automates our every day lives. It is not but clear if an AI bubble is ready to burst, however some monetary forecasters have sounded the alarm. Regardless, it is exhausting to see how consumers and workers are getting something however the quick finish of the stick up to now.