NO RELIEF IN SIGHT: Memory executives expect RAM shortage to continue through 2028.

“For 2027, a large part of the volume is already sold out for 2027 for HBM, and the prices are much higher than 2026 prices,” Mehrotra said.

Micron doesn’t know when its supply will catch up with demand because the “demand trends of larger models, growing context, more concurrency, greater agents across enterprise, and consumer only continue to drive greater need for memory [and] greater need for memory content, as well as for higher performance memory,” Mehrotra said.

Mehrotra’s statements are supported by comments that Kim Taewoo, EVP at Micron competitor Samsung, made this week. He said HBM will account for almost 30 percent of DRAM manufacturers’ wafer capacity in 2027, compared to 20 percent this year, Reuters reported. That would limit the amount of DRAM made for consumer devices.

Ouch.