The 2020s have been a tough decade for gaming hardware so far. Manufacturers barely had time to recover from the various COVID-related supply chain issues that crippled the launches of consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, when they were faced with a new problem: the rise of AI data centers and the RAM they have devoured.
Indeed, if you’ve been trying to build a PC these past few months, I probably don’t have to tell you that certain components can be hard to come by. Specifically, DDR4 and DDR5 RAM, as well as hard and solid-state drives, have skyrocketed in price. Frustratingly, these sharp spikes are almost entirely the result of aggressive worldwide investment in artificial intelligence. Last year alone, AI firms accounted for 61% of all global venture capital investment—corresponding to a total of $258.7 billion. I wish I had better news for you, but I don’t: RAM and SSD prices will probably get worse before they get better.
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Don’t Expect Ram Shortages to Stop Any Time Soon
AI Data Centers Continue to Put Global RAM Supplies in a Chokehold
You may have heard of the material impact of AI before. For instance, many are eager to point out the immense amount of water that AI data centers consume. But they also require, unsurprisingly, a lot of hard materials, including high-bandwidth memory, which is the type of RAM most often used for general system RAM and VRAM. Again, generative AI is no cottage industry, so the strain it’s putting on this market is extremely significant. I would call it immeasurable, but that’s not quite true: analysts have reported that ChatGPT platform holder OpenAI had reserved as much as 40% of worldwide RAM by 2025.
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The result is an increase of between 200% and 400% in RAM pricing worldwide, as well as an extreme increase in demand for raw materials used in RAM stick construction, further exacerbating shortages. Part and parcel of this is an increasingly concerning decrease in available parts for NAND storage, which is the kind of storage used in hard drives and SSDs. This will likely have a knock-on effect for other PC parts as well—expect CPU prices to climb at an abnormally fast rate, too.
There are precious few signs of this trend slowing down; several financial reports have suggested that it will actually accelerate. Take a notable 2024 analysis by renowned management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, which predicted that demand for data centers could increase by as much as 27% by 2030, requiring nearly quintuple the power they use today. Such growth would necessitate an unprecedented amount of materials for this sector. To put a fine point on it, as of April 2026, Samsung and SK Hynix—who together supply about 90% of global dynamic RAM—have publicly warned that they will likely not meet their supply demands through 2027.
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Geopolitical Factors Further Complicate Components Manufacturing and Shipping
Though their impact on RAM costs isn’t as significant as the AI industry’s, President Trump’s tariffs and escalating global tensions have certainly exacerbated soaring RAM costs. On top of tariffs and war-related supply chain problems, many tech firms have reportedly scaled back certain global trade operations. For instance, throughout 2025, during which Trump enthusiastically announced a number of stark tariffs and aggressive trade strategies, Samsung and SK Hynix both halted shipments of outphased semiconductor production machines to China, where a considerable amount of electronics are manufactured. Normally, these machines would play a key role in global tech manufacturing; now, they are sitting unused in warehouses.
Another potential complicating factor for the RAM market in May is continued unrest from Samsung’s labor union, which is threatening an 18-day strike starting on May 21.
What Gaming Hardware Will Be Affected by the Ongoing RAM Shortage, and for How Long?
Steam recently reported that the new Steam Controller was not affected by parts shortages, which is some good news that probably won’t apply to most gaming hardware. For now, it’s safe to assume that basically every piece of technology that uses RAM or storage will be more expensive for the next several years, and in fact, prices could continue to climb. It may seem like we are knee-deep in this issue now, but we are perhaps just getting started: AI companies like OpenAI are very much in the research and development phase right now—their energy and hardware demands will only grow if AI adoption becomes more widespread.
Upcoming Gaming Hardware That Will Likely Be Impacted by the RAM and SSD Crisis
- PlayStation 6
- Project Helix (next Xbox)
- Steam Machine
- Steam Deck 2
- Steam Frame
- All GPUs and SSD wafers
- All pre-built PCs
- All new laptops, desktops, and mobile devices
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This might not last forever, though. By and large, the AI industry is still unprofitable, and general hype for the technology has dampened, especially as obvious, applicable AI developments become less frequent and dramatic. If investors continue to grow bearish about the burgeoning industry, then AI companies could pull back on data center construction, thus alleviating some of the pressure on the aforementioned materials. Or the industry could undergo a bubble, wherein mammoth capital investments are not met with meaningful returns, which would completely recontextualize the AI discussion. There’s also the possibility that technological innovation will lead to more efficiency or alternatives that reduce the strain on resources. And while the political sphere, especially in the West, has been astonishingly pro-AI in recent years, this could change dramatically moving forward. The political upheaval in the US alone is enough to make such a change seem more realistic than it was a year ago.
But even in the best-case scenario, these RAM problems won’t be solved overnight. There will be a wind-down period regardless, during which time shifting supply chain structures, reallocation of resources, and power vacuums may result in latency or further complications between high-level changes and actual consumer prices. More importantly, solutions to the AI data center issue won’t appear out of thin air. Lawmakers, local leaders, and all citizens in democratic societies will have to push for meaningful AI regulation, if they want it. Similarly, consumers will need to vote with their wallets if they want to stop seeing AI colonize the tech world.
