Samsung and SK Hynix are jacking up DRAM prices by as much as 70 percent

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Editor's take: Companies with advanced chipmaking capabilities are currently raking in enormous profits. Unsurprisingly, two of the world's largest memory manufacturers are focused on sustaining and even inflating this unprecedented demand for as long as possible.

According to Korean sources, Samsung and SK Hynix are more than willing to raise memory chip prices while the AI-driven financial bubble continues. Both companies are reportedly notifying their high-profile customers that server DRAM prices could increase by as much as 60 – 70 percent compared to the fourth quarter of last year.

The price hike is hitting Big Tech particularly hard, with Microsoft and Google reportedly purchasing as many DRAM chips as possible. Outside the data center market, consumer products such as PCs and smartphones are expected to see similar manufacturing cost increases. Eventually, Asus and other consumer brands are likely to pass these higher costs on to end customers.

Additionally, the two Korean foundries are asking customers to agree to new quarterly contracts. Long-term agreements are now the exception rather than the rule, as chip manufacturers anticipate further price increases over the coming months and into 2027. In December, Micron announced it had already secured agreements for memory supply covering all of 2026, and the company has discontinued its consumer-oriented Crucial brand to better focus on enterprise customers.

Sources said the recent cost increases are largely driven by a surge in orders for HBM3E memory products. Companies building new AI data center capabilities require powerful AI accelerators with large amounts of high-performance memory. HBM3E is used by Nvidia's H200 chips, which were recently cleared by the US government for export to China.

Broadcom is also ramping up HBM3E orders for Google's TPUs and other custom AI accelerators, adding further pressure on the DRAM supply chain. Microsoft, Amazon, and other IT giants are reportedly sending procurement teams to Korea to secure a stable memory supply. As a result, business hotels around Seoul have been booked for extended stays by US corporations.

TrendForce predicts that the DRAM boom will continue for some time, with prices for conventional contracts expected to rise up to 60 percent in the first quarter of 2026. NAND Flash prices are also projected to increase, though more modestly, with a maximum rise of around 38 percent. Demand is expected to far exceed the availability of new chips, and customers will likely accept the higher costs if they want to remain competitive.

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Samsung and SK Hynix are jacking up DRAM prices by as much as 70 percent

 

[noel24]

MY GOD!!! This is the new middle ages. People will slow down their electronics replacement cycle. Normally, manufacturers would work to improve accessibility, that would lower prices, but with AI bubble buying out everything to stay bloated, not to burst, We face permanent state of prohibitive prices. That will last, and last, making PC builds permanently slim in memory. 8GB will be a new norm for prebuilds (majority of PCs sold) bought by people who just don't know better (majority) or those who cannot afford.
That just may be a great time for manufacturers of smartphones, tablets and "retro" style game developers.
DIY PC will die, or at least fade, and new generation will not be interested in it more than a novelty hobby. You'll see.
On the upside, AI will have a potential to move people out of the house, to the backyard, to grow vegetables in spring or forage for wood to throw into fireplace in winter, when We loose any work opportunity to an AI controlled robot. So, in not that distant future We will eat healthier and be more fit.

Thank You nVidia. Thank You Intel, Thank You AMD, and Micron, and Samsung, And Google, nd Microsoft, and Oracle, Open AI, Thank You all!
You're great.

 

[NicktheWVAHick]

I may have just unwittingly built my last PC….ever…after over 45 years of upgrades.
So sad.

 

[Win7User]

Greed, plain and simple.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

MY GOD!!! This is the new middle ages. People will slow down their electronics replacement cycle. Normally, manufacturers would work to improve accessibility, that would lower prices, but with AI bubble buying out everything to stay bloated, not to burst, We face permanent state of prohibitive prices. That will last, and last, making PC builds permanently slim in memory. 8GB will be a new norm for prebuilds (majority of PCs sold) bought by people who just don't know better (majority) or those who cannot afford.
That just may be a great time for manufacturers of smartphones, tablets and "retro" style game developers.
DIY PC will die, or at least fade, and new generation will not be interested in it more than a novelty hobby. You'll see.
On the upside, AI will have a potential to move people out of the house, to the backyard, to grow vegetables in spring or forage for wood to throw into fireplace in winter, when We loose any work opportunity to an AI controlled robot. So, in not that distant future We will eat healthier and be more fit.

Thank You nVidia. Thank You Intel, Thank You AMD, and Micron, and Samsung, And Google, nd Microsoft, and Oracle, Open AI, Thank You all!
You're great.

THE END IS NIGH! THE END IS NIGH!

Hey, remember when the GPU market was screwed forever, and wed never see mid range GPUs under $1000 ever again? How everything would be built around web3, the blockchain, and NFTs? How we'd have to switch to cloud services because hard drives would always be expensive forever?

 

[noel24]

THE END IS NIGH! THE END IS NIGH!

Hey, remember when the GPU market was screwed forever, and wed never see mid range GPUs under $1000 ever again?

Sorry, but that happened. nVidia is pushing up hard to not go below $250 for absolute garbage (RTX 5050). While Intel, also buying silicon from TSMC, can sell You 19,6billlion transistor, 12GB B580 card for $260.
Let It sink in.
19,6 billion transistors with 12GB of VRAM.

Those are almost 5060Ti 16GB numbers.

5060Ti going for nearly double at my local shop right now.

nVidia are reaping the fruits of Their decades long monopolistic practises, and They will not give You any presents for Black Friday, this tradition is ooovvveeer.

If not next, the generation of cards from nVidia after 60 series will be minimum $1000.
"inflation" and "tariffs" and what-not.

 

[NumberNine]

Eat while you can Samsung, tomorrow is just around the corner...

 

[noel24]

Eat while you can Samsung, tomorrow is just around the corner...

This is the philosophy They all follow. "Let's charge maximum, We'll see what happens tomorrow." And They win, cause consumers still come back. Free market somehow doesn't work anymore.
I have the feeling, that after years of antitrust cases, They worked a way around It, setting up pricing without use of emails and shady restaurant/hotel meetings.

 

[airbornex]

Discontinuing Crucial to focus on enterprise customers is the most honest move here. If DRAM is going to be treated like oil, might as well sell it to governments and megacorps instead of people trying to upgrade from 16GB.

 

[bclaymiles]

I may have just unwittingly built my last PC….ever…after over 45 years of upgrades.
So sad.

Same. Had I actually gotten off my butt and started building four months ago, it would have been reasonable. A memory kit that cost $500 in September is now $1600.

I'm just glad the specs on my current PC are still perfectly adequate for gaming and computation. The new build was a 'want' not a 'need'. First started tinkering with PC's (and similar) in the 1980's. So, about forty years here. Sigh.

 

[JaredTheDragon]

Imagine even believing these "AI datacenters" even exist. Horseshit. Nobody is buying up any of this stuff, and nobody is actually selling it. None of this **** is real - because AI isn't real. Quantum computers aren't real. Everything "AI"-sold and driven is happening on local hardware and that's why it was developed in the first place. They just wanted to further monetize it so you pay for the hardware and a fake subscription to what you already paid for.

 

[fazy shah]

It's all planned. They blame AI, which is not entirely causing this.

Companies like samsung were caught red-handed before doing this and was fined in the past.

 

[Tom Yum]

This will just leave the door wide open for Chinese firms to establish meaningful marketshare as they grow in volume, so by the time the AI crash inevitably occurs Samsung and Micron will be left fighting a lower cost mass producer who hasn't pissed off every consumer with ridiculous price gouging over the past 1-2 years. So short sighted.

 

[Loadedaxe]

MY GOD!!! This is the new middle ages. People will slow down their electronics replacement cycle. Normally, manufacturers would work to improve accessibility, that would lower prices, but with AI bubble buying out everything to stay bloated, not to burst, We face permanent state of prohibitive prices. That will last, and last, making PC builds permanently slim in memory. 8GB will be a new norm for prebuilds (majority of PCs sold) bought by people who just don't know better (majority) or those who cannot afford.
That just may be a great time for manufacturers of smartphones, tablets and "retro" style game developers.
DIY PC will die, or at least fade, and new generation will not be interested in it more than a novelty hobby. You'll see.
On the upside, AI will have a potential to move people out of the house, to the backyard, to grow vegetables in spring or forage for wood to throw into fireplace in winter, when We loose any work opportunity to an AI controlled robot. So, in not that distant future We will eat healthier and be more fit.

Thank You nVidia. Thank You Intel, Thank You AMD, and Micron, and Samsung, And Google, nd Microsoft, and Oracle, Open AI, Thank You all!
You're great.

This is pure doomposting.

AI demand stressing memory supply isn’t new, crypto, mobile, and servers all did the same thing. People still bought GPUs during the crypto era, and they’ll still buy RAM now. Capacity expands, prices normalize. It always has.

8GB being a permanent norm makes no sense when modern software already outgrows it. OEMs shipping cheap 8GB configs isn’t new, and it hasn’t killed DIY before.

DIY PCs aren’t dying, if anything, bad prebuilt value pushes people toward DIY. And the “AI ends work and civilization” take is just recycled panic we’ve heard every tech cycle.

Criticize pricing strategies, sure. But this isn’t the new middle ages. PC building isn’t going anywhere. History already shows people keep buying, even when prices spike.

 

[Loadedaxe]

Imagine even believing these "AI datacenters" even exist. Horseshit. Nobody is buying up any of this stuff, and nobody is actually selling it. None of this **** is real - because AI isn't real. Quantum computers aren't real. Everything "AI"-sold and driven is happening on local hardware and that's why it was developed in the first place. They just wanted to further monetize it so you pay for the hardware and a fake subscription to what you already paid for.

This isn’t opinion, it’s just factually wrong. Come back down to earth.

AI datacenters absolutely exist...they’re public, audited, and power-metered. Hyperscalers are buying GPUs by the hundreds of thousands, signing multi year supply contracts, and building new power infrastructure just to run them. That hardware isn’t sitting in someone’s desktop.

AI isn’t magic, but it’s very real. Large models physically cannot be trained on consumer hardware. Local inference exists, but training is where the demand and cost come from.

Quantum computing isn’t driving consumer pricing, but it also exists in real labs and commercial pilots.

Criticize AI hype and subscription models all you want. Denying the infrastructure itself isn’t.

It's all planned. They blame AI, which is not entirely causing this.

Companies like samsung were caught red-handed before doing this and was fined in the past.

You’re mixing a real issue with an exaggerated conclusion.

Yes, memory manufacturers have been fined in the past for price fixing. That's history, move on from conspiracy, it doesn’t mean every supply crunch is fake. Blaming everything on back room price gouging while ignoring demand and capacity shifts doesn’t hold up.

 

[Liranan]

MY GOD!!! This is the new middle ages. People will slow down their electronics replacement cycle. Normally, manufacturers would work to improve accessibility, that would lower prices, but with AI bubble buying out everything to stay bloated, not to burst, We face permanent state of prohibitive prices. That will last, and last, making PC builds permanently slim in memory. 8GB will be a new norm for prebuilds (majority of PCs sold) bought by people who just don't know better (majority) or those who cannot afford.
That just may be a great time for manufacturers of smartphones, tablets and "retro" style game developers.
DIY PC will die, or at least fade, and new generation will not be interested in it more than a novelty hobby. You'll see.
On the upside, AI will have a potential to move people out of the house, to the backyard, to grow vegetables in spring or forage for wood to throw into fireplace in winter, when We loose any work opportunity to an AI controlled robot. So, in not that distant future We will eat healthier and be more fit.

Thank You nVidia. Thank You Intel, Thank You AMD, and Micron, and Samsung, And Google, nd Microsoft, and Oracle, Open AI, Thank You all!
You're great.

"You too can own a 5090 for the modest price of 100 a month!"

They don't care, they intend to push everyone towards cloud computing.

 

[Liranan]

This isn’t opinion, it’s just factually wrong. Come back down to earth.

AI datacenters absolutely exist...they’re public, audited, and power-metered. Hyperscalers are buying GPUs by the hundreds of thousands, signing multi year supply contracts, and building new power infrastructure just to run them. That hardware isn’t sitting in someone’s desktop.

AI isn’t magic, but it’s very real. Large models physically cannot be trained on consumer hardware. Local inference exists, but training is where the demand and cost come from.

Quantum computing isn’t driving consumer pricing, but it also exists in real labs and commercial pilots.

Criticize AI hype and subscription models all you want. Denying the infrastructure itself isn’t.



You’re mixing a real issue with an exaggerated conclusion.

Yes, memory manufacturers have been fined in the past for price fixing. That's history, move on from conspiracy, it doesn’t mean every supply crunch is fake. Blaming everything on back room price gouging while ignoring demand and capacity shifts doesn’t hold up.

So them saying that they lack the power, water (cooling) and infrastructure (buildings) to place the tens of thousands of chips they've bought is factually wrong?

He is partially correct as they have hardware but nowhere to put them. This is massive corruption, created by NVIDIA and everyone's in on it. The eventual goal is to get everyone to abandon local hardware and accept that we will get scammed to death through cloud computing.

 

[Loadedaxe]

Sigh ....

 

[Loadedaxe]

So them saying that they lack the power, water (cooling) and infrastructure (buildings) to place the tens of thousands of chips they've bought is factually wrong?

He is partially correct as they have hardware but nowhere to put them. This is massive corruption, created by NVIDIA and everyone's in on it. The eventual goal is to get everyone to abandon local hardware and accept that we will get scammed to death through cloud computing.

No, that isn’t “factually wrong,” it’s being misrepresented.

Power, water, and building constraints are real, 100%, and completely normal at this scale. Datacenters aren’t like PCs where you just plug them in. When companies buy tens of thousands of GPUs, the compute arrives faster than the infrastructure. That lag happens every expansion cycle.

That isn’t corruption, and it isn’t new. The same thing happened during cloud expansion, crypto mining booms long before “AI hype.”

Nvidia doesn’t control grid capacity, zoning permits, or water rights. Utilities, local governments, and construction timelines do. Claiming “everyone’s in on it” ignores how fragmented and regulated this process actually is.

Also, cloud computing hasn’t replaced local hardware in 15+ years....and it won’t now. PCs, consoles, and servers still exist because latency, cost, and ownership matter.

Criticize pricing and vendor power if you want....But infrastructure bottlenecks does not equal conspiracy.

 

[RudyBob]

Anyone here at Techspot that might have an in demand widget would get as much for it as possible. No exceptions. The way around is to have more producers and more ingredients

 

[Axeia]

THE END IS NIGH! THE END IS NIGH!

Hey, remember when the GPU market was screwed forever

Remember? It still is.
According to my memory:
Step 1) RTX 2xxx series - big price bump for almost no performance, lukewarm reception (made the GTX 1xxx series legendary because they looked so good by comparison)
Step 2) COVID/Ethereum causing RTX 3xxx series to go up and up until AMD and NVIDIA decided to just take a chunk of that profit for themselves. Market ruined.
Step 3) Prices are still rigged but at least you could get a gaming PC again for 1080p/1440p around a $/€/£/1000 aaand AI happened and it doesn't look like they'll ever be back to how it used be.
Before the RTX 2xxx series every generation brought a 'tier level' of the previous generation into that of a price bracket below it. Sometimes even better. RTX 3060/4060/5060 for example don't differ much in performance and in how much they do is offset by matching price increase.

and wed never see mid range GPUs under $1000 ever again?

Not many that thought it'd be that bad (although opinions on what is considered mid range vary from person to person

How everything would be built around web3, the blockchain, and NFTs?

That was just cooperate hype in hopes of cashing in. I haven't seen many if any regular people be excited about that except the few that got into it heavily themselves and oh boy did 99.9% of them waste their money.

How we'd have to switch to cloud services because hard drives would always be expensive forever?

imo they have been since the floods in Thailand all the way back in 2011. Similarly to the graphics card prices they were presented with an opportunity to raise prices and then simply never lowered them again.
But I guess you were referring to the 'proof of storage' crypto currencies. Which imo like NFTs and 99% of cryptocurrencies a couple of people with a get rich quick scam trying to profit of the masses and failed to do so. Didn't really affect prices much after an initial scare.

 

[Mister_K]

Greed, plain and simple.

I mean supply and demand. That's how free market works. It's not really greed. There is simply not enough for everyone. Dw, ud do exactly the same if you could.

 

[TechSavy101]

Do not buy Graphics cards, Rams, SSDs until Ai bubble bursts which can take up to 2-3 years. Given how $hit games have been there is no reason to rush upgrading anyway. Only plus is that this infestation hasnt reached CPUs yet. I would hate to see $2500 cpus like we had with Intel extreme series.

 

[James321]

Only 70%? They should increase it 200%. The corpo's with AI have deep pockets and has a lot of money to burn. Take them to the cleaners, also increase prices on everything else they use to the last microchip!

 

[toooooot]

THE END IS NIGH! THE END IS NIGH!

Hey, remember when the GPU market was screwed forever, and wed never see mid range GPUs under $1000 ever again? How everything would be built around web3, the blockchain, and NFTs? How we'd have to switch to cloud services because hard drives would always be expensive forever?

I member. I sold rx580 for 380 dollars and that was a good price.