If you've been shopping for any sort of new technology lately, chances are you'll have come across ludicrous memory prices, fewer choices, or, like in the case of the Steam Deck, limited availability. Shortages of the best RAM for gaming are having knock-on effects everywhere nowadays, but why? And hold on, what's causing this to begin with?
Long story short, the development of AI data centers, combined with an increase in memory-hungry devices (again, thanks to AI-readiness), is eating up the world's supply of RAM wafers so there's a tiny pool of stock for consumers. Seeing as supplying these data centres is more lucrative, memory manufacturers are prioritising AI, and in such vast quantities that there isn't enough memory being produced globally to service the consumer market. That's causing massive price hikes, stock shortages, an increase in demand, and even changes to the next-gen strategies for Sony, Microsoft, and Valve's next-gen gaming hardware.
