“This is no longer a cyclical imbalance. It is a structural reallocation of the memory market driven by AI infrastructure economics,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst and CEO at Greyhound Research. “The biggest mistake right now is to view this as a wafer or DRAM shortage. The constraint is systemic.”
Shrish Pant, director analyst at Gartner, offered a more nuanced read. A 2030 horizon, he said, assumes AI demand grows without interruption — a scenario that is not guaranteed. “HBM wafer reallocation is very real and is definitely impacting the market till the end of 2027,” Pant said. “I see a sustained demand for HBM to continue to grow, with more complex, high-performance HBM keeping prices higher.”
He added that some rationalisation in AI infrastructure spending cannot be ruled out, and that traditional DRAM prices could improve by 2028 as new fabs — including Samsung’s P5, SK Hynix’s Yongin facility, and Micron’s Boise expansion — come online, though prices would remain above 2025 levels.
What makes this shortage different from previous memory cycles is supplier behaviour. Gogia pointed out that memory vendors are locking in multi-year agreements, committing future HBM output well in advance — a pattern inconsistent with cyclical markets. “This is how a strategic resource market behaves when demand visibility is high, and margins are concentrated in a specific segment,” he said.
IDC, in a February analysis, projected that 2026 DRAM and NAND supply growth would come in at 16% and 17% year-on-year, respectively, well below historical norms, a consequence of Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron reallocating cleanroom capacity toward higher-margin AI products.
Enterprise buyers caught in the crossfire
That capacity reallocation is now working its way through enterprise procurement, creating what Gogia described as a two-tier market: hyperscalers and sovereign-scale buyers who secure capacity early, and enterprises that operate on delayed access, reduced configuration flexibility, and higher costs. “Supply is not just sold. It is reserved ahead of time,” he said.
