AI's Hunger For Memory Chips Could Shrink Smartphone and PC Sales in 2026, IDC Says (idc.com)
- Reference: 0180459381
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/12/26/144228/ais-hunger-for-memory-chips-could-shrink-smartphone-and-pc-sales-in-2026-idc-says
- Source link: https://www.idc.com/resource-center/blog/global-memory-shortage-crisis-market-analysis-and-the-potential-impact-on-the-smartphone-and-pc-markets-in-2026/
IDC expects 2026 DRAM supply growth to hit 16% year-on-year, below historical norms. The smartphone industry's decade-long trend of bringing flagship features to affordable devices is reversing. Memory represents 15-20% of the bill of materials for mid-range phones, and thin-margin vendors like Xiaomi, Realme and Transsion will bear the brunt. Apple and Samsung have long-term supply agreements securing components up to 24 months ahead. PC vendors including Lenovo, Dell, HP, Acer and ASUS have warned clients of 15-20% price increases heading into the second half of 2026.
[1] https://www.idc.com/resource-center/blog/global-memory-shortage-crisis-market-analysis-and-the-potential-impact-on-the-smartphone-and-pc-markets-in-2026/
AI reaching natural limits (Score:2)
People think AI is a super-power, but most of it's gains are simply caused by people using better hardware.
The increasing cost of Memory may be the first of many limits that reduces AI's growth. This may cause some disillusion in the fantasy that AI will become more than a College level intern.
The cycle repeats (Score:3)
This tightening of computing software was one of the aspects of the rise of smartphones I enjoyed 17 years ago. Desktop software and websites had been growing at obscene rates for years since hardware capabilities tended to double every few years. Then smartphones came on the scene with their single-core ARM CPUs and limited memory and suddenly developers had to scale back, make things more efficient, and create websites that would load over a mobile 3G network connection. It was nice seeing massive Flash sites get replaced with HTML and huge applications get scaled back to work on phones.
Of course, eventually, smartphones got more and more powered and the pendulum began to swing back toward bloat. Limits on RAM sales might help us swing toward efficiency again, at least for a few years.
I was looking at smartphones and thinking (Score:2)
Oh boy! New hardware with the same old google owned and controlled androidOS on it, I already have a good but older phone that works fine as a hotspot, so instead of a new phone why not get a blackberry form factor Linux handheld computer (cyberdeck), like that clockwork uConsole, it has a durable metal chassis and the parts inside are easily replaced or upgraded or modified, there are a few others like the Mecha Comet too, so why buy a new smartphone when a cyberdeck would be more suitable for what I want,
We have a solution (Score:2)
Luckily Linux works on "end of support" computers and "low ram" ones so you can keep using existing computers until the AI fad blows over.
Re: (Score:2)
I doubt that will be the case once Linux completely drops 32-bit support, which is what all those retro-computers would need
Re: (Score:2)
64 bit processors have been around in x86 land since the Athlon 64 first came out in 2003, so and there will continue to be 32 bit distributions of Linux for at least another ten years.
Will somebody with connections please (Score:2)
...expose and pop this damned AI bubble!? Jeez
Re: Will somebody with connections please (Score:2)
No way, we're all in.
Re:Will somebody with connections please (Score:4, Interesting)
I think we need to wait until either (1) Wall Street gets spooked about companies' return on their AI investment, and/or (2) major investment funds lose a big chunk of money to AI. According to an op-ed in TheRegister, [1]https://www.theregister.com/20... [theregister.com], (and I hope I'm paraphrasing this correctly), most companies promoting their AI investment are merely buying some AI and then telling their proles to use it figuring they can then cut their workforce. However, that only makes the proles more productive, it does not eliminate roles. To do that, you must redo your internal processes to fit AI. Very few companies do that because that would be expensive. They want AI on the cheap, and it sounds good on quarterlies and to their boards.
To change the processes, it helps to start at the bottom and let it filter up, not establish some company-wide mandate to use it (or else).
That article also mentions something which I think is a killer. AI doesn't learn on its own. Let's presume this is true. To get around it, you must be constantly updating the model. To do that, you must constantly extract new information from your organization. But if your organization does not change, then your AI will not significantly change. And this is a recurring cost, not buy once and flog it forever to your investors, board, customers, etc.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/24/reason_ai_isnt_delivering/?td=rt-3a
Re: Will somebody with connections please (Score:2)
I personally struggle to see the value. I use some AI tools and it maybe saves me 2 hours a week, but, some many other people I work with are seeing 20-30% time savings. AI might be overinflated and needs to deflate a bit but I'm slowly moving to the this is the new normal stance.
I regards to AI impacting PC and phone. That's almost a given at this point. I would not be shocked if many second tier, in terms of volume not quality, laptop, phone, and tablet manufactures go bankrupt this year. I have one of
Re: (Score:2)
Fully agree! Also interesting that all the activists who used to protest the building of power plants for people seem to have gone quiet when it comes to unlimited power for AI datacenters