{"id":236837,"date":"2026-01-14T03:57:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T03:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/236837\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T03:57:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T03:57:12","slug":"the-ram-shortages-silver-lining-less-talk-about-ai-pcs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/236837\/","title":{"rendered":"The RAM shortage\u2019s silver lining: Less talk about \u201cAI PCs\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gadgets\/2026\/01\/high-ram-prices-mean-record-setting-profits-for-samsung-and-other-memory-makers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">RAM prices have soared<\/a>, which is bad news for people interested in <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gadgets\/2025\/11\/spiking-memory-prices-mean-that-it-is-once-again-a-horrible-time-to-build-a-pc\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">buying, building, or upgrading<\/a> a computer this year, but it\u2019s likely good news for people exasperated by talk of so-called AI PCs.<\/p>\n<p>As Ars Technica has reported, the growing demands of data centers, fueled by <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/AI_boom\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the AI boom<\/a>, have led to a <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gadgets\/2026\/01\/high-ram-prices-mean-record-setting-profits-for-samsung-and-other-memory-makers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shortage of RAM<\/a> and flash memory chips, driving <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gadgets\/2025\/12\/for-just-a-couple-of-months-in-the-middle-of-2025-it-was-an-ok-time-to-build-a-pc\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">prices to skyrocket.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In an announcement today, Ben Yeh, principal analyst at technology research firm Omdia, said that in 2025, \u201cmainstream PC memory and storage costs rose by 40 percent to 70 percent, resulting in cost increases being passed through to customers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Overall, global PC shipments increased in 2025, according to Omdia, (which pegged growth at 9.2 percent compared to 2024), and IDC, (which today reported 9.6 percent growth), but analysts expect PC sales to be more tumultuous in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe year ahead is shaping up to be extremely volatile,\u201d Jean Philippe Bouchard, research VP with IDC\u2019s worldwide mobile device trackers, said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Both analyst firms expect PC makers to manage the RAM shortage by raising prices and by releasing <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gadgets\/2024\/12\/generative-ai-has-done-one-unambiguously-good-thing-for-pcs-and-macs-16gb-of-ram\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">computers with lower memory specs<\/a>. IDC expects price hikes of 15 to 20 percent and for PC RAM specs to \u201cbe lowered on average to preserve memory inventory on hand,\u201d Bouchard said. Omdia\u2019s Yeh expects \u201cleaner mid to low-tier configurations to protect margins.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese RAM shortages will last beyond just 2026, and the cost-conscious part of the market is the one that will be most impacted,\u201d Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for worldwide mobile device trackers at IDC, told Ars via email.<\/p>\n<p>IDC expects vendors to \u201cprioritize midrange and premium systems to offset higher component costs, especially memory.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RAM prices have soared, which is bad news for people interested in buying, building, or upgrading a computer&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-236837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}