HBM shortage due to AI craze

[carpanfan96]

Micron just announced it is leaving the consumer market and Crucial as of February 26 will be no more.

While Samsung and SK Hynix are guaranteeing most of its supply to business contracts for AI companies, leaving a tiny supply for its consumer markets. Combined with Micron those three companies make up 96% of the world's Dram supply with almost none of it going to consumers. 

It's so bad that Samsung Mobile is having issues getting supply from Samsung DX which is causing internal issues and will lead to a shortage of phones and higher prices in February. 

AMD announced a 10% price hike across its product line going forward as of today.  

GPU's will go up here shortly, ram has already doubled this year and it will keep going up. Storage has seen a smaller increase but a bigger one is coming for it as the next generation of AI cards are being built that require a ton of HBM on the boards. 

Rumors that both AMD and Nvidia will eliminate lower tier GPU's for the next generation if not sooner. 

So the end isn't in site and it will totally affect next generation consoles, the PC building and prebuilt markets and everything in-between including cellphones. 

Pretty much seeing the end of the main stream gaming industry end before your eyes right now.   

Storage pricing doubling to tripling over the next year to two. 

Consoles starting at 699.99/799.99 and up for what you would've spent 400 on just a few years ago.  

An entry level PC build starting in the 3k range considering the new reality for ram, storage and GPU costs. 

The cost to entry will be too high for most consumers after this shift is finished in 2028 and that's if a consumer market even exists by then. 

[d-dave]

Yep.  I've been keeping up with this, and it just SUCKS.

Money keeps getting dumped into AI for the sake of not losing to the other guy so resources get vacuumed up into datacenters so people can make AI videos to impress their friends.

I really want the AI bubble to pop.  I appreciate things like training a chatbot for a specific purpose, or using machine learning to find things our eyes miss in medical scans.  But how much of the billions spent on AI will lead to something remotely useful or profitable?

I love my crucial SSDs and RAM.  They have been rock stars in my systems.

[Khyber53]

People keep throwing money at the AI growth situation in hopes it will speed things up, get them to the finish line first. And it just doesn't completely work that way. Money helps, but there's a whole supply line issue and programming issue.

The problem really is that we create too many business degrees and not enough degrees in the fields that actually make things work. It's ruining a lot of stuff.

And yeah, it's going to be a while before anyone can upgrade their stuff. And if you're a gamer... maybe it's time to develop a love for retro systems.

[HeelsPanthersCanes]

On 12/9/2025 at 10:57 AM, Khyber53 said:

maybe it's time to develop a love for retro systems.

Piston Honda says hello.