ADATA warns that DRAM shortage crisis may persist for 10+ years; NAND shortages forecast to ease in 2027.

According to TrendForce, NAND flash supply growth will outpace demand in 2027, with supply constraints easing in the second half of that year. However, Adata's chairman warns that DRAM shortages may persist for another decade, and that memory and electricity could become the world's two scarcest resources.

TrendForce's latest NAND flash report offers rare optimistic news for those hoping SSD prices will return to normal levels. The analyst firm expects the market to remain undersupplied throughout 2026 with a supply deficit of 4% to 5%, as booming AI demand strains limited capacity expansion. The situation should improve during the latter half of 2027 as suppliers migrate to newer manufacturing processes, steadily increase bit output, and selectively upgrade existing production lines. Chinese manufacturers are also installing new equipment, expected to increase their share of global NAND bit output to nearly 19%.

Servers now account for more than 40% of NAND consumption. Shipments of Intel and AMD's next-generation server platforms are expected to push total server shipments up 17% this year. Smartphones and notebooks together represent almost 40% of demand but remain weak, with TrendForce expecting smartphone production to fall 15% to 20% in 2026 and notebook shipments to decline around 10%.

This forecast is more optimistic than Silicon Motion's recent warning that 2027 would be the worst year yet for NAND availability, with cloud companies receiving priority over consumer products. TrendForce agrees capacity will remain constrained into next year but believes supply growth will finally overtake demand during the second half.

The DRAM situation presents a sharply different outlook. Adata chairman Chen Li-bai says the industry has underestimated future demand from AI infrastructure and believes shortages could continue for another ten years despite expansion plans from Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron. New factories scheduled to come online between 2028 and 2035 may still fail to satisfy demand. Chen dismissed concerns about an AI bubble, suggesting the subject should not be discussed seriously until 2040 or later. Reports that Meta and xAI are leasing excess compute capacity do not indicate demand is slowing, he argues, as AI expands into more commercial and government applications.

SK Hynix predicts the memory crunch will peak in 2027 and continue through 2030, while Micron also expects memory shortages to stretch beyond 2027. The crisis has already pushed DDR5 kit prices from around $100 to more than $400, revived demand for DDR4 hardware, and prompted warnings that memory costs could raise PC and smartphone prices by as much as 8%.