AI fever continues to put pressure on the consumer market: TrendForce warns that DRAM will rise by 15% and NAND by 20%

The trend continues and the pressure does not ease. At least, that’s the hasty conclusion we can draw from TrendForce’s new report. As mentioned, the global memory semiconductor market will record a new increase in contract prices during the fourth quarter of 2026.

The consultancy’s forecasts point to an increase in cost of between 10% and 15% for conventional DRAM memory, while NAND Flash memory will increase by 15% to 20%. The allocation of capacity towards advanced computing servers maintains a prolonged shortage in traditional sales channels.

AI servers continue to dominate demand

Beyond the simplistic conclusions, there are some data in the report that are worth analyzing. For example, he mentions that, in the field of data centers, large cloud providers have increased purchases of conventional RDIMM modules to power servers aimed at agentic work.

However, the report notes that packaging limitations and wafer rigidity are preventing supply from meeting orders. According to TrendForce, DRAM memory for servers will continue in structural deficitdespite the fact that long-term contracts cushion part of the financial impact. That is, the bottleneck is still there, but it does not prevent new orders from arriving.

Of course, all of this directly harms PCs and also the prices of mobile devices. Manufacturers are urgently purchasing modules, anticipating that availability will worsen in 2027, although high costs are slowing the release of laptops in stores. As the consultant explains, mobile memory will maintain an upward trend due to the depletion of low-price reserves and the allocation cut in chip factories.

The segment of the graphs is more or less the same. The report indicates that demand for GDDR7 memory comes mostly from AI circuits, outpacing domestic GPUs. At the same time, although some manufacturers are considering returning to GDDR6 chips to contain costs, memory suppliers are reducing productionwhich will prevent any reduction in price in the short term.

Enterprise SSDs accelerate their rises as PCs cut storage

Corporate storage stands out as the only product division where price increases will accelerate during this period. The consulting firm says that the demand in bits for SSD units for companies will grow more than 80% year-on-year in 2026 due to inference in the cloud and the adoption of QLC memories in databases.

For its part, the commercial availability of PCIe 6.0 storage remains low because the majority of items are already reserved.

In the field of eMMC memories and UFS chips for mobile phones or televisions, manufacturers are purchasing the bare minimum. According to the consulting firm, the prices of NAND wafers have reached historical highs that the retail channel cannot absorb, causing a forced containment in orders for new components.