If you were hoping memory prices would cool down soon, I have some bad news. Micron, one of the world’s biggest memory makers, has warned that the RAM shortage isn’t going anywhere, and it might even get worse.
According to The Register, Micron CEO and chair Sanjay Mehrotra told investors on the company’s FY 2026 earnings call that it has already sold most of next year’s memory output. Buyers will also pay “much higher prices” than they did this year.
How long will the RAM shortage last?
It will last longer than any of us would like. “In calendar 2027 as well as 2028, we see demand exceeding supply,” Mehrotra said, adding that the crunch in those two years will be worse than what we’re seeing in 2026. Even more worrying, Micron doesn’t know when the situation will improve. “We do not have a line of sight to when supply and demand will return to balance,” he admitted.
Micron is building new factories that should start production in 2028, backed by $25 billion in planned spending for the first half of its new financial year. Sadly, don’t expect relief the moment they open, as Micron’s executives cautioned that the new plants won’t fix availability or pricing right away.
Blame it on AI. The high-bandwidth memory (HBM) that powers AI hardware is in such demand that it’s outpacing demand for the standard DRAM servers use.
What does it mean for you?
For regular users like us, the takeaway is simple. With most of Micron’s memory already sold and AI gobbling up supply, cheaper laptops, PCs, and RAM upgrades seem unlikely anytime soon. If you were waiting for prices to drop before upgrading, you might be waiting a long time.