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Industry Says Memory Prices Will Stay Elevated Through 2030

Take‑or‑pay deals and surging AI datacenter demand are locking supply and pushing meaningful relief until new fabs add capacity around 2028.

Overview

  • Lenovo told attendees at ISC 2026 on Friday that DRAM and NAND prices that spiked in late 2025 are now the expected baseline into 2030 and may not return to early‑2025 levels.
  • Micron has signed multi‑year strategic customer agreements described as take‑or‑pay contracts that lock buyers into volumes and revenue through 2030 and limit spot availability.
  • Company executives say there is no clear line of sight to supply catching up with AI demand, with firms forecasting only gradual improvements once new capacity begins arriving around 2028.
  • Memory makers are prioritizing high‑margin server and high‑bandwidth memory for AI datacenters, shrinking supply for consumer DRAM and NAND and keeping prices elevated.
  • The sustained tight market is already raising retail costs for phones, laptops, consoles and SSDs and could keep consumer device prices higher for years while fab builds and capacity shifts play out.