The accelerated development of data centers designed to run AI is leading to unprecedented competition in the market for memory chips for computing. And it goes without saying that the withdrawal from the public market announced by industry giant Micron is not going to help matters.
Computer memory crisis: a “real heist in progress”
The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) is reshuffling the deck in many sectors, going far beyond simply seeing it gradually and successfully perform increasingly complex tasks that until now involved intellectual and creative professions reserved for humans.
In fact, another battle is being fought from a more technical standpoint, in the market for computer memory chips, particularly the famous DRAMs. The issue at stake: data centers in constant search of RAM and computing power, to the obvious detriment of the consumer computer market.
This observation has been made by many IT specialists, to the point where the X account responding to the pseudonym Deus Ex Silicium speaks of a “real hold-up in progress” in the field, with the price of DDR4 RAM, DDR5, and NAND Flash memory prices have been rising sharply since September, with “peaks of more than 500% expected by next summer.”
The memory shortage appears to be exacerbated by the giant Nvidia—which does not directly produce this type of chip—due to its dominant position in the AI accelerator market. But it seems to have finally been caught up in this crisis. Indeed, some sources indicate that it will now deliver its GPUs without the video memory chips (VRAM) that were previously associated with them, leaving its partners to deal with the complexity of sourcing them.
Giant Micron leaves the consumer market to specialize in AI
This complicated situation could become even more so, if we are to believe the recent announcement by industry giant Micron regarding the planned discontinuation by June 2026 of its consumer memory chips, sold under the Crucial brand.
The aim of this decision? To enable Micron to leave the consumer market, where it has been selling its products for 30 years, in order to focus exclusively on its most profitable activity: selling memory directly to AI computing farms run by companies such as OpenAI, Google, and others.
This shift towards AI also affects Bitcoin blockchain miners, particularly in order to increase the profitability of their electricity supply as BTC mining becomes less and less profitable.
From a more technical perspective, the current memory chip crisis does not directly affect the production of the ASICs needed for their business, but more generally a reorganization of the global semiconductor supply chain. In any case, an inevitable increase in operating costs seems likely.
