Micron Hikes Memory Prices Amid Surging AI Demand

Micron will raise prices for DRAM and NAND flash memory chips through 2026 as AI and data center demand strains supply chains, the U.S. chipmaker confirmed Monday. The move follows a market rebound from previous oversupply, with memory prices steadily climbing as producers cut output while AI and high-performance computing workloads grow.

Rivals Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are expected to implement similar increases. Micron cited "un-forecasted demand across various business segments" in communications to channel partners. The price hikes will impact sectors ranging from consumer electronics to enterprise data centers.

Re:

[blackomegax]

I bought a YMTC NAND 2TB NVME drive and it is equally as fast and stable as my samsung ssd.

Collusion

[backslashdot]

These guys are talking to each other and you know it. Is there a backlog and have they increased or decreased production? That's what will fish out the truth. These prices hikes aren't so they can raise the cap-ex to increase production (that's what investors and bank loans are for), which means they are colluding.

Re:

[Chris Mattern]

"These prices hikes aren't so they can raise the cap-ex to increase production (that's what investors and bank loans are for)"

Investors expect dividends. Bank loans expect to paid back. Price hikes are how you pay for these things.

Re:

[backslashdot]

They shouldn't expect to be paid back until the capex project is finished though. If they raise prices and their competitors don't, simply raising prices will backfire.

Re:

[Chris Mattern]

"If they raise prices and their competitors don't, simply raising prices will backfire."

Unless there is a supply shortage, in which case customers will pay the higher prices because order books are full--they can't get any at the lower price because those are all bought.

And serious expansion of capacity will cost more than the capacity that went before it, because the cheap sources of capacity have been used. Look up "marginal cost".

Re:

[BetterSense]

You may be right, but this is a rarefied market where collusion isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Hear me out. OPEC was formed decades ago for the oil-producing governments to openly collude on oil prices, and is tolerated because the world benefits from stable oil pricing and steady investment that can happen when there's not constant scorched-earth pricing wars going on.

Memory prices are similar to oil in that if a single company under-prices or over-prices memory or storage, it can have whiplash effects that

apple will chnage $600 to upgrade from 1TB to 2TB

[Joe_Dragon]

apple will chnage $600 to upgrade from 1TB to 2TB now.

Re:

[kamapuaa]

That's a good amount of memory for just $600.

Re:

[Entrope]

By 2015 standards, maybe. Hard drives (not really a fair comparison) are currently about $20/TB, but even high performance 2 TB SSDs for commodity use (rather than industrial or enterprise use) are typically under $200.

First it was blockchain...

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

First the blockchain-miners raised the prices for GPUs. Now the AI goldrush is raising prices for memory. This is why we can't have nice things.

Re:

[LowestKey]

At least the AI gold rush's main use isn't laundering money for the ultra-wealthy criminals of the world

Fortunately, AI companies hate spending money

[ebunga]

It really cuts into their CEO's filthy ludicrous lifestyles, so they'll just cancel all the datacenter builds and close up shop and wait a couple of decades for the next AI boom. This will then mean a glut of chips, so we'll get fire sale prices for a little while.

That would false

[sdinfoserv]

I've read just the opposite is true. Companies are scaling back on their data center build outs because demand isn't meeting expectations.
https://www.reuters.com/techno... [reuters.com]