Adata Chairman Predicts a Decade of Memory Shortages

Adata's chairman says the DRAM shortage will run another 10 years, with contract prices set to climb further.

Adata chairman Simon Chen said the global DRAM shortage will last another 10 years and dismissed talk of an AI bubble as premature, suggesting the question be revisited in 2040 or 2050. The comments, reported by Commercial Times, came after Taiwanese stocks fell following TSMC's record second-quarter results. Adata forecast DRAM contract prices rising 20% to 30% in the third quarter and NAND flash prices rising 35% to 40%.

The supply crunch is already showing in prices: DRAM contract prices have risen as much as 171% year over year. The industry is spending heavily to catch up. SK hynix raised a record $26.5 billion in a US IPO to fund high-bandwidth memory expansion, Nanya plans to quadruple capital spending to $6.2 billion in 2027, and China's CXMT is reportedly approaching Micron-scale output. Adata itself had stockpiled over NT$30 billion in chip inventory by late February, and Taiwanese module makers raised roughly $880 million to buy chips.

Memory is a base ingredient in nearly every computing and connected device. Sustained shortages raise the cost of phones, PCs, servers, cars, and the edge devices Chen expects to reach tens of billions of units. That works against the trend of computing getting cheaper, and it makes the AI buildout more expensive to feed.

The caveats are heavy. These are forecasts and opinions from one chairman, sourced to a single report, and as the article notes, his bullish outlook aligns neatly with his company's financial interest in higher prices. Watch whether actual third-quarter contract prices match the forecast.

Source: Tom's Hardware