Micron Says Memory Shortage Will 'Persist' Beyond 2026 (theverge.com)
- Reference: 0180416863
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/1529254/micron-says-memory-shortage-will-persist-beyond-2026
- Source link: https://www.theverge.com/news/847344/micron-ram-memory-shortage-2026-earnings
Micron recently shuttered Crucial, its consumer-facing brand, to focus on high-bandwidth memory for AI data centers. HBM technology requires three times the silicon wafers of standard DRAM, leaving fewer resources for the chips that go into PCs, smartphones and cars. Micron plans to boost DRAM and NAND shipments by 20 percent next year but acknowledged this won't meet demand. New facilities in Idaho and New York are slated for 2027 and 2030 respectively.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/news/847344/micron-ram-memory-shortage-2026-earnings
Is Windows 11 the cause of this? (Score:1)
The memory requirements for Windows 11 are absurd. Linux works fine with 4GB of RAM.
It's time for businesses and government to give up on Microsoft.
Re:Is Windows 11 the cause of this? (Score:5, Informative)
> The memory requirements for Windows 11 are absurd. Linux works fine with 4GB of RAM.
> It's time for businesses and government to give up on Microsoft.
You didn't even read the summary. It's due to AI datacenters. "Micron recently shuttered Crucial, its consumer-facing brand, to focus on high-bandwidth memory for AI data centers."
Re: (Score:2)
Quite the opposite, it is the crazy rush after the illusion of "AI growth" that is the problem.
Expect that consumer hardware will stagnate, as the "AI" vendors who must sell the LLMs, try to set things up so you must offload whatever it is you want done to their servers and pay for it, even if it means buying up hardware production capacity.
Re: Is Windows 11 the cause of this? (Score:2)
Linux works fine with 4GB but apps don't. I know because my laptop came with 4GB and it was borderline unusable of I actually did anything with it. 8GB made it acceptable.
Meanwhile my desktop has 64GB of DDR4 and I'm real glad I bought it when I did. Most people don't need that much, but I do VMs sometimes and it's important. OTOH gaming showed significant improvements going from 16 to 32.
Re: (Score:2)
There are apps and there are apps. Slack can OOM with mere 128GB, it worked stable on 256GB though. On the other hand, there are playable and fun 4K games.
Then I won't buy. (Score:2)
My wallet will stay closed to memory purchases for the duration of this price spike.
Re: (Score:3)
> My wallet will stay closed to memory purchases for the duration of this price spike.
Price spike? You have to pretend to be an AI datacenter to even be eligible to purchase memory from Micron. Which, I assume, will require a purchase well beyond what any individual could ever reasonably need, unless you happen to actually own your own large-scale datacenter.
MRAM as a possible future. (Score:1)
Be nice if MRAM was more mature especially OHE.
As a once loyal Crucial customer. (Score:3)
I hope when the AI bursts they are left holding mountains of inventory no one wants.Yea I get it, there's a 'shortage'. Sure sure.
Thanks AI'ssholes (Score:3)
I do computational fluid dynamics and need a system with at least 256GB of RAM. That RAM was less than $1000, and now it's nearly $3000.
Re: Thanks AI'ssholes (Score:1)
you should have salary that can handle that.
Re: The times of "AI" resource misallocation are h (Score:2)
Um, I get it, you're probably retired and above the fray, but us peons have been suffering for more than just this year. All the hiring in 2023 was at sweat shops, and all the hiring in 2024 was at the IRS and the bricklayers' guild Showing up at a job fair feels like when Mary Poppins showed up and swept away the competition with her personal superpower hurricane. I have 64gb already installed in my personal machine, so they can suck it, respectfully...until Microsoft unveils the Windows 13 128gb requir