The world's three major memory chipmakers—Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron—have reportedly sold out their entire 2027 manufacturing capacity for DRAM and HBM chips, largely to AI companies, according to a Digitimes report cited by TweakTown. This extends the ongoing "RAM crisis" for at least another year, as none of the manufacturers themselves have yet confirmed the report, and suggests consumer memory prices will keep climbing with no relief in sight.

Much of this capacity has reportedly been locked in through long-term purchasing agreements spanning up to five years, meaning memory that hasn't even been manufactured yet is already pre-sold, leaving little room for prices to ease without new capacity coming online. NAND storage is also seeing rising demand, though supply hasn't been fully absorbed due to a wider pool of suppliers; even so, SSD prices have risen sharply, with a Western Digital SN7100 1TB drive up 52% since January, from around $110 to $189. The squeeze is already visible in consumer hardware, with the Xbox Series X and Valve's Steam Machine both launching or rising in price partly due to higher memory costs.