Laptop makers have about a year of memory stock to ride out the RAM crunch, Intel says

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Editor's take: Thanks to Big Tech and Sam Altman's dreams about AGI, DRAM and other memory chips are undergoing some ungodly levels of price hikes. However, the portable computing business seems to be well-equipped to weather the storm – at least for the next year.

In a recent interview, Intel said the laptop market is likely to emerge mostly unscathed from the memory chip shortage driven by the AI data center craze. Some analysts had predicted sharp price increases or the possibility of downgraded specs for upcoming laptop models. According to Intel, however, things should remain largely stable for now.

Nish Neelalojanan, Intel's senior director of product management, said OEMs have built up enough inventory to last 9 to 12 months. Laptop manufacturers relying on Intel platforms have secured sufficient components to ride out the DRAM crunch, a buffer that should ultimately benefit consumers.

"If anyone could predict the memory market, they would be rich by now," Neelalojanan joked during the interview.

That said, OEMs aren't relying on clairvoyance. Neelalojanan explained that PC makers typically plan years in advance, locking in supply well ahead of product launches. As a result, current inventories are helping insulate the industry from supply chain disruptions, allowing new laptops to launch largely on schedule.

When Dell introduced its latest XPS models earlier this month, some observers speculated that the new machines carried significantly higher prices than their predecessors. Dell later clarified that the initial launches focused on high-end configurations, with more affordable variants set to arrive in the coming weeks.

Neelalojanan also pointed to additional steps the industry is taking to cope with memory constraints. He highlighted changes in Intel's upcoming Core Ultra Series 3 processors, including a larger shared L3 cache: 18MB accessible by both performance and efficiency cores, designed to boost performance and reduce reliance on system memory.

Microsoft, too, is reportedly pushing a renewed efficiency message. The company is developing new tools that give software developers more precise insight into how their applications actually consume system RAM.

Many Windows users are well aware that the platform is currently struggling with reliability and efficiency issues, making Intel's sudden emphasis on optimization feel ironic.

As a result, some are now predicting – or even hoping – that the AI bubble will burst in 2026, forcing the industry to refocus on real customer needs. As Dell recently acknowledged, very few consumers are purchasing "AI PCs" because they have dedicated AI components, finding the features somewhat confusing or irrelevant compared with performance, battery life, and other practical factors.

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Laptop makers have about a year of memory stock to ride out the RAM crunch, Intel says

 

[unoficialoficial]

The surge in demand for memory is driven by people using AI services via smartphones. In her keynote, Lisa Su said that there are now about 1 billion of these people, and the projection is for this number to reach 5 billion in a few years. There are 1 billion people using AI services via smartphones now, and the price of memory has increased tenfold just in a few months.

If manufacturing capacities don't scale up, the price will increase a thousandfold after few years, and the whole market will grind to a stuck due to extreme demand and price. All systems will be down.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

The surge in demand for memory is driven by people using AI services via smartphones. In her keynote, Lisa Su said that there are now about 1 billion of these people, and the projection is for this number to reach 5 billion in a few years. There are 1 billion people using AI services via smartphones now, and the price of memory has increased tenfold just in a few months.

Now for the other half of the truth: "AI" has been shoved into tools people were already using. ! billion people did not seek out AI tools. AI tools were hastily added into tools 1 billion people already used to make it look way more popular then it actually is.

Everyone who uses Google counts as an "AI" user now. That doesnt mean that this market is full of new consumers nor does it make any money.

If manufacturing capacities don't scale up, the price will increase a thousandfold after few years, and the whole market will grind to a stuck due to extreme demand and price. All systems will be down.

Does anyone actually believe the price will rise 1000x in a few years? This is like the guys who thought Dogecoin was gonna hit a billion dollars.

64GB of RAM is not going to cost as much as a house. Supply and Demand exists, and with the current money on the table the Chinese are getting in on the game. Give it a few years and they'll grab the market and strangle current manufacturers (good) and take the market.

 

[Win7User]

My, HP desktop, flipped out on me a few days ago. I, thought I got a nasty virus. But, I could not get in to recovery mode to save my life! I, was starting to panic, because I back up my operating system every 24 automatically. Well, come to find out, if one of your memory sticks goes bad, you can't do anything, the computer simply won't boot up. Black, screen of death! So, I pulled one of the sticks out, and low and behold she fired right up. I, didn't know that a bad memory stick would keep your computer from booting up! And, here I thought I knew it all. Well, now I do know it all. Lmao... The, point being, I called a local memory shop here in town, and they wanted $80 for a 16gb stick. Yikes!! But, I didn't pay that, turns out I bought two memory sticks for this very computer to go from 16gb, to 32gb about a year and a half ago. This, company guarantees their memory sticks for LIFE! I, got it for free. Happy birthday to me, early for February.

 

[Xelions]

Market crash. Memory prices crash, everything crashes!

 

[user556]

I think the headline should read "Laptop makers quickly hoarded a year's worth of DRAM back in September."

 

[J95qRP7]

If this is true, why are manufacturers reducing memory capacity of new devices. There has been multiple articles/rumours that new devices that might have had 32GB is now getting 16GB. So, do they actually have a years worth of supply? Is that year of supply with the reduced capacity for new devices? Are manufacturers double dipping, getting bulk memory orders for "cheap" then selling devices with less, stretching their reserves longer, meaning they get greater margins for much longer?

Man, it's tough to find some enjoyment in PC hardware currently. The only "new" CPUs in 2026 is Panther Lake for mobile. No GPUs from AMD or NVIDIA in 2026. Memory and storage prices are skyrocketing.

 

[yRaz]

The surge in demand for memory is driven by people using AI services via smartphones. In her keynote, Lisa Su said that there are now about 1 billion of these people, and the projection is for this number to reach 5 billion in a few years. There are 1 billion people using AI services via smartphones now, and the price of memory has increased tenfold just in a few months.

If manufacturing capacities don't scale up, the price will increase a thousandfold after few years, and the whole market will grind to a stuck due to extreme demand and price. All systems will be down.

what I think is telling is that Memory makers don't want to scale up production, just reallocate current production. My interpretation of this is that even they don't believe the AI boom causing the shortage is going to last long to justify investments in increasing capacity and then having a massive memory price crash after the drop to the point where memory might have to be sold at a loss. Their job is to make money. They literally have a legal obligation to their shareholders to do what is in the best interest of the business. If this was going to last longer than say a year or two, then they would be legally obligated to increase capacity to sell more RAM at 10X the price a few months ago.

 

[unoficialoficial]

what I think is telling is that Memory makers don't want to scale up production, just reallocate current production. My interpretation of this is that even they don't believe the AI boom causing the shortage is going to last long to justify investments in increasing capacity and then having a massive memory price crash after the drop to the point where memory might have to be sold at a loss. Their job is to make money. They literally have a legal obligation to their shareholders to do what is in the best interest of the business. If this was going to last longer than say a year or two, then they would be legally obligated to increase capacity to sell more RAM at 10X the price a few months ago.

Having profit is beneficial not only for shareholders but also, in the mid-to-long term, for their customers, as it allows for reinvestment in better manufacturing technology. The problem is not the profits themselves, but rather the timing and synchronization. The market cannot pay $1000/GB, even if demand justifies that price, because the perceived value is not that high.

If a player in an orchestra plays the correct notes but with a delay of a few seconds, the whole orchestra fails to function; they must be in sync for the system to work. The evaluation of situations, of course, is subjective, and the final decision rests with the boards of these companies. However, given the surge in demand and static patents (which grant monopolies) I do not think they have “strong” motivation (profits are a shallow “compass”) to take risks with new facilities simply to support the entire ecosystem in the mid-to-long term from collapsing.

 

[yRaz]

Having profit is beneficial not only for shareholders but also, in the mid-to-long term, for their customers, as it allows for reinvestment in better manufacturing technology. The problem is not the profits themselves, but rather the timing and synchronization. The market cannot pay $1000/GB, even if demand justifies that price, because the perceived value is not that high.

If a player in an orchestra plays the correct notes but with a delay of a few seconds, the whole orchestra fails to function; they must be in sync for the system to work. The evaluation of situations, of course, is subjective, and the final decision rests with the boards of these companies. However, given the surge in demand and static patents (which grant monopolies) I do not think they have “strong” motivation (profits are a shallow “compass”) to take risks with new facilities simply to support the entire ecosystem in the mid-to-long term from collapsing.

But that's the thing, Mircon has stated they will not be building new facilities to match demand. They said it will take at least 3 years for new facilities to come online so that leads me to conclude they don't believe in the long term demand for memory in data centers.

TSMC has been quiet about this, but they aren't expanding capacity to match AI demand, either.

It's really just US companies trying to sell the world on AI. Companies like Micron, TSMC, Foxconn are more than happy to take AI money, but no one outside the US is expanding capacity to meet demand caused by the AI craze.

We in the US are also having a very American approach to AI research. Just throw more hardware, electricity and money at the problem. I think people forgot about Ollama too quickly as I run that locally on a 3070ti, 3800x and 128Gb of DDR4.

If there is anything to be learned from Ollama, it's that there is still tons of progress to be made simply with optimization in AI than just throwing more data and hardware at the problem.

The rest of the world isn't interested in aiming the money printer at the money furnace in the name of AI and you REALLY have to ask why when you see that.

 

[airbornex]

The most believable part of this is that nobody can predict the memory market. The second most believable part is Microsoft promising efficiency while Windows casually eats half your RAM at idle.

 

[human7]

18MB of L3 cache... that's it?