CES 2026 is over and it has revealed the situation with memory being consumed by AI companies is much worse than we initially thought.

What I heard on the ground floor from various system integrators, components manufacturers, and other companies, is memory supply has been tied up for all of 2026, and that shortages could last as long as until 2031.

Sure it’s scuttlebutt but wouldn’t surprise me as being true.

  • Trainguyrom@reddthat.comEnglish
    61·
    21 hours ago

    A 5 year DRAM shortage is pretty hard to imagine. I have to suspect that’s a projection that assumes no AI bubble popping (which given how insanely over-leveraged basically every company involved in the bubble is, its inevitable. They’re literally spending more building these datacenters than they can ever dream of recouping once built!) The last DRAM shortage (around 2017-2019 by memory) was only really bad for about a year or so, getting gradually better until it became an absolute glut of DRAM supply that lasted until…well about 3 months ago. $60 per terabyte of SSD storage was glorious, and hopefully I can afford to benefit from the next DRAM glut in 2-5 years

    • Random Dent@lemmy.mlEnglish
      4·
      9 hours ago

      I’m genuinely putting money aside for when the AI bubble pops so I can hopefully hoover up some cheap computer parts lol

      • SpaceCadet@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        1·
        7 minutes ago

        There won’t be “cheap computer parts”, it will all be datacenter junk that’s useless to a consumer, like rackmounted servers with insanely loud fans and “GPUs” that can’t output an image or play games.

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.comEnglish
        1·
        7 hours ago

        I keep a separate savings account for things like that. I just call it “upgrade” in my banking app. Its money specifically earmarked for any kind of entirely-optional big purchases, like computer upgrades, server upgrades, home theatre upgrades, etc. I also have one earmarked for replacing my current cars and one for vacations, plus of course my emergency fund

        The only problem with this approach is I tend to hoard my money and want to see my savings account go up, so I really don’t end up spending as much as I could on myself. Like I have an entire computer’s worth in the “upgrade” account right now

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.comEnglish
        15·
        19 hours ago

        Honestly interest rates dropping might be ultimately be a good thing. The job market is so tight and most recession indicators have already been blazing. I doubt they’ll do the same hard drop they did in Q2 of 2020, but I do think more aggressive rate cuts might alleviate a lot of the burden consumers (especially young adults and anyone unfortunate enough to have been/be jobless over the last couple of years) have been feeling. A big chunk of the inflation consumers were seeing on goods in 2024 was just companies making opportunistic price increases, as evidenced by the heavily advertised price drops afterwards.

        Additionally there is the statistic that nearly 50% of all retail spending in the United States is made by the top 10% of earners which is a heck of a dangerous tightrope for the economy. I do think that’s the other shoe waiting to drop right this second. If the wealthier Americans get spooked and start to pull back their spending this economy is going to tumble