Micron warned at Computex that AI-driven memory demand would spur price rises

At the summer 2024 Computex event, Pcgamer reports Micron vice president Dinesh Bahal warned a memory-pricing crisis was on its way, tying the shift to AI's growing appetite for memory.

Bahal told attendees that "this thing called high bandwidth memory" was a focus for the "big three—Hynix, us, Samsung" and that "memory's become sexy again," adding "without memory, it ain't gonna happen." The article also noted sticker shock among consumers as prices changed, saying $80 for a 1 TB SSD was common last year while "you're now looking at over $100 for a cheap gaming SSD," and that DRAM prices were starting to rise.

The report says Micron's comments were largely off-the-cuff and that the warning went unheeded; even as DRAM prices began to climb, the "doom-laden prophecy" lay dormant. The author adds that history suggests such warnings would not have been paid much attention at the time.

Key Topics

Tech, Micron, Dinesh Bahal, High Bandwidth Memory, Dram, Ssd