RAM prices have soared, which is bad news for people interested in buying, building, or upgrading a computer this year, but good news for people worried about the buzz around so-called AI PCs.
As Ars Technica reported, increased demand for data centers due to the AI boom has led to a shortage of RAM and flash memory chips, causing prices to skyrocket.
In an announcement today, Ben Yeh, principal analyst at technology research firm Omdia, said that in 2025, “mainstream PC memory and storage costs will increase by 40 percent to 70 percent, resulting in increased costs being passed on to customers.”
Overall, global PC shipments are expected to increase in 2025, according to Omdia, (which forecast 9.2 percent growth over 2024), and IDC, (which reported 9.6 percent growth today), but analysts expect PC sales to be more turbulent in 2026.
“The coming year is going to be extremely volatile,” Jean-Philippe Bouchard, research vice president of IDC’s worldwide mobile device trackers, said in a statement.
Both analyst firms expect PC makers to manage the RAM shortage by raising prices and releasing computers with lower memory specs. IDC expects prices to rise 15 to 20 percent and that PC RAM specs will be “reduced on average to preserve memory inventory on hand,” Bouchard said. Omdia’s Yeh expects “a reduction in mid- to low-end configurations to protect margins.”
“These RAM shortages will just last beyond 2026, and the cost-conscious part of the market is the one that will be most impacted,” Jitesh Ubrani, research manager of worldwide mobile device trackers at IDC, told Ars via email.
IDC expects vendors to “prioritize midrange and premium systems to offset higher component costs, especially memory.”
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