Six months on: What the memory market shift means for your next hardware refresh

When we wrote about the looming DRAM shortage late last year, the picture was just starting to come into focus. Half a year later, the story has moved on.

Where we are today 

In our original piece, we flagged growing pressure on memory supply as AI infrastructure investment ramped up. We expected things would tighten. They have, more than most of us anticipated.

• DRAM contract prices climbed 90–95% quarter-on-quarter in Q1 2026 which is the largest single-quarter movement on record (NAND Research, May 2026).

• The global semiconductor market is on track to clear US$1.29 trillion in 2026, up roughly 53% year-on-year, according to IDC. DRAM revenue alone is forecast to nearly triple to US$418.6 billion (IDC, April 2026).

• PC memory costs are expected get to 23% of the total bill-of-materials (BOM) up from 16% in 2025.

• Mizuho analysts now project DRAM contract pricing could move +355% and NAND +510% across 2026. (Forbes, May 2026)

• Micron crossed the US$1 trillion valuation mark on 26 May 2026, the fastest company to ever reach that threshold, with HBM production contractually sold out for the remainder of the year.
  

Demand from AI is reshaping where memory goes, who gets it and what it costs. 

AI is reshaping the supply map

It's worth being clear about the underlying mechanic, because it changes how to think about the next 18–24 months.

Hyperscaler capex passed US$100 billion in a single quarter for the first time in late 2025, and the four largest hyperscalers are projected to spend a combined ~US$600 billion in 2026, up around 70% year-on-year.

Most of that money is buying AI infrastructure, and AI infrastructure is unusually memory-intensive: an AI server typically uses around six times the DRAM and twice the SSD capacity of a standard server.

That's pulled wafer capacity toward high-bandwidth memory (HBM) at the expense of conventional DRAM.

Nina Turner, Research Director of Semiconductors at IDC describes this as a structural shift rather than a passing cycle.

"The semiconductor market has undergone a permanent expansion of its addressable opportunity. AI infrastructure has reset the demand baseline, memory has repriced as a strategic asset, and the industry's growth trajectory through 2030 is no longer contingent on a consumer refresh cycle,"
Ms Turner said.

Gartner labelled the result "memflation" and forecasts DRAM will be up roughly 125% year-on-year in 2026, with meaningful relief unlikely before late 2027.

This isn't the usual cycle. It's a longer-term reset.

What the major vendors are telling the market

The big vendors are navigating the same conditions. 

Dell COO Jeff Clarke has been the most plainspoken of the executives.

"The fact is, the cost basis is going up across all products. Everything that uses a CPU has DRAM, has storage in it," Mr Clarke said on Dell's fiscal Q3 2026 call. 

Mr Clarke also reminded the market that Dell has been here before.

"This isn't our first DRAM cycle. There have been seven, I think, in the last 40 years. Michael and I have been here navigating the organisation in various ways through that time."

By February 2026, Dell had raised server prices, repriced "tens of thousands of open quotes" in the PC business, and compressed quote validity to its shortest windows on record.

HPE CEO Antonio Neri on the Q1 FY2026 earnings call explained;

"The IT market is facing a sharp acceleration in supply tightness and increasing component costs, most notably in DRAM and NAND. We expect elevated prices to persist well into 2027."

HPE has taken what it calls an "agile pricing posture" amending terms so existing orders can be repriced if component costs move between quoting and shipment. They have also reduced quote validity from 30 days to 14.

CFO Marie Myers confirmed HPE began passing through memory-related increases from November 2025.

HPE's Alletra MP storage platform grew 42% year-on-year, the fifth straight quarter of double-digit growth.

Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing has taken a supply-securing approach, locking in contracts with key suppliers and holding inventory roughly 50% above normal to buffer customers from the worst of the volatility.

COO Marco Andresen put it directly:

"The industry is experiencing unprecedented cost growth, particularly in DRAM and SSDs. The increases are more significant than ever, and no company can fully absorb them."

Lenovo signalled 15–20% pricing changes across PCs and servers to partners in early March 2026.

The pattern is similar elsewhere.

Pure Storage (now Everpure) was, by its CEO Charlie Giancarlo's account, "the last in our industry to raise prices, and… the lowest in the industry, to protect our customers,"  before eventually moving in early February.

NetApp raised in November 2025, with CEO George Kurian flagging steps to manage "the unprecedented inflation in memory prices." (IT Pro, May 2026)

When does this stabilise

Some of the main analyst updates we have found agree the market will not stabilise anytime soon. 

• Gartner sees no meaningful relief before late 2027.

• NAND Research describes the current period as a shift from "structural constraint" to "acute shortage," with normalisation unlikely before late 2027 or 2028.

• SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won said the pressure could carry through to 2030 even as new capacity comes online.

• IDC projects total memory revenues reaching US$790.4 billion by 2027, with structurally higher pricing through to 2030.

• New fabs, including Micron's Idaho facility, won't be producing at meaningful scale for about a year, and the technical complexity of HBM means the supply response is slower than past cycles.

What this means for your next refresh

Our teams are finding the ongoing DRAM shortages are impacting both supply and cost, with lead times often extending well beyond what teams may be used to.

Warwick Smith, Account Manager at Truis explained said “It’s as bad as I’ve seen it". 

“We’re seeing very short quote validity, and even then, pricing can change.” 

These constraints are forcing IT leaders to rethink their project timelines. Projects that once took a few months to finalise can now stretch significantly longer due to delays in sourcing equipment.

"If a customer has a project they’re working on with a baked-in assumption of ‘here’s my timeline based on getting the equipment quite quickly’, I now let them know it’s going to be months before the equipment comes,” Warwick says.

 “This impacts when you need to order, so laying all of that out can help them bring forward the purchase from when they thought they needed to.”

 “We’re seeing quote validity getting quite short, even one or two weeks validity and even then, if the vendor changes their mind, then all bets are off and we’ve got to requote,” Warwick says.

“I let customers know if they want to go ahead and replace storage or get those new networks or top up their buffer stock, this is what I’ve seen happen with the price.

“I help them assess what they do now versus what they push down the line.” 

1. Treat hardware quotes as time sensitive.
Quote validity windows have shrunk to as little as 14 days, and vendors are repricing existing orders against rising component costs. If you have approved projects, momentum matters more than it did 12 months ago.

2. Bring forward your refresh conversations.
If you've got infrastructure approaching end-of-life in the next 12–18 months, it's worth getting visibility on the options now rather than later. Lead times and pricing are both moving the wrong way.

3. Build configuration flexibility into your planning.
As some vendors are seeing in Australia, customers are taking different configurations, sometimes a lower memory spec now with a planned upgrade path.

4. Look at how you fund the spend.
Vendor financial programs can smooth the impact of higher upfront costs into operating budgets. Speak to our team about vendor finance options available.

5. Lean on your partner network.
Visibility into supply, vendor pricing mechanics, and configuration alternatives is genuinely useful right now. This is the kind of thing we do every day for our customers, sitting alongside your IT team, doing the legwork, and making sure the right product gets to the right place at the right price.

6. A refresh doesn’t always mean starting from scratch.
Re‑use, recycling and life‑extension can be part of a smarter plan. Truis helps you get more value from what you already own, balancing performance, sustainability and what’s right for your people.

If you'd like to talk through how this affects your specific environment or upcoming plans, contact us today. 

References: 

IDC — Semiconductor Market Forecast 

IT Pro — How Enterprise Storage Vendors Are Responding 

Forbes — Micron's Unstoppable March Past $1 Trillion 

Gartner — DRAM Pricing Forecast   

TrendForce — DRAM Demand Forecast    

Dell Technologies — FY2026 Earnings Calls    

HPE — Q1 FY2026 Earnings Call    

Lenovo — Partner Communications & Earnings