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Memory crisis expected to last until 2031, supply already allocated for 2026
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this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
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The AI bubble will pop long before then, and everyone will have more RAM and GPUs than they know what to do with.
looks at housing bubble "............. god i hope you're right"
As much as private equity wants to think it is, housing is not a commodity like DRAM is.
Housing always has a base value in that people always need places to live, so it's price is sticky. The need for DRAM could disappear overnight if it so happened that way.
For the dram unfortunately won't be possible to use it in the consumer space, at least not in the current form. Hbm is really server stuff, and as is, you cannot repurpose it. As for the GPUs, maybe they can be used for the consumer space but I am not entirely sure the specs would be wise to use it at home, since they need some very serious cooling capabilities, as well electricity consumption. Biggest winners of this pop in my opinion would be anyone who need cheap server rack stuff.
The RAM for 2026-2031 hasn't been produced. It's the production capacity that's been bought out.
If the AI bubble bursts, the manufacturing can be reassigned.
Part of it is not finished DRAM that was sold yet, it's wafer capacity at the factory.
Sam Altman has promised orders for a kazillion wafers that don't exist yet. It's been argued this is less legitimate demand and more an effort to crimp the scaling ambitions of other competitors.
If his cheque bounces early on, the manufacturers are likely to reassign his slots to other buyers.
The manufacturers are taking a fair bit of risk though. If they aren't getting paid before work starts, and the bubble pops in the middle, thry could end up with a lot of (partially or fully) finished wafers that they can't just slice up and sell to Corsair and G.Skill.
You are not wrong about the reallocation part. However, if you see the actions from micron (fuck you micron BTW), they are going all in and having a shit storm in PR on the consumer side. If they are taking these risks without proper assurances, then they are utterly deranged
I mean, you and I can't, but memory manufacturers? They'll find a way.