GoKawiilCrystal ball: Maybe we're worrying too much about the current memory crisis: according to TrendForce, NAND flash supply growth will outpace demand next year, with supply constraints easing in the second half of 2027. Or maybe we're not worrying enough: Adata's chairman says DRAM shortages will last another decade and that memory and electricity will become the world's two scarcest resources.
TrendForce's latest NAND flash report is a rare piece of good news for those hoping SSD prices will eventually return to something approaching normal. The analyst firm says the market will remain undersupplied throughout 2026, recording a supply deficit of between 4% and 5%, as booming AI demand clashes with limited capacity expansion.
Thankfully, the situation should begin improving during the latter half of next year. Suppliers are migrating to newer manufacturing processes, steadily increasing bit output, and selectively upgrading existing production lines. Chinese manufacturers are also installing new equipment, which is expected to increase their share of global NAND bit output to almost 19%.
Servers now account for more than 40% of NAND consumption, and shipments of Intel and AMD's next-generation server platforms are expected to push total server shipments up 17% this year. However, smartphones and notebooks, which together represent almost another 40% of demand, remain weak. TrendForce expects smartphone production to fall 15% to 20% in 2026, while notebook shipments decline around 10%.
The forecast is more optimistic than Silicon Motion's recent warning that 2027 would be the worst year yet for NAND availability as cloud companies receive priority over consumer products. TrendForce agrees that capacity will remain constrained into next year, but believes supply growth will finally overtake demand during the second half.
DRAM appears to be a very different story. Adata chairman Chen Li-bai says the industry has underestimated future demand from AI infrastructure and believes shortages could continue for another ten years, despite expansion plans from Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron.
Chen said new factories scheduled to come online between 2028 and 2035 may still fail to satisfy demand. He also dismissed concerns about an AI bubble, suggesting the subject should not be discussed seriously until 2040 or even 2050. Reports that Meta and xAI are leasing excess compute capacity do not indicate demand is slowing, he argues, as AI expands into more commercial and government applications.
It was recently reported that SK Hynix predicts the memory crunch will peak in 2027 and continue through 2030, while Micron also expects memory shortages to stretch beyond 2027. The crisis has already helped push DDR5 kit prices from around $100 to more than $400, revived demand for DDR4 hardware, and prompted warnings that memory costs could raise PC and smartphone prices by as much as 8%.