RAM Fever
The price of memory has roughly tripled in six months. Who ends up paying?
Welcome to another edition of Generalist Intelligence, the weekly intelligence briefing that delivers situational awareness in 20 minutes or less. To unlock the full briefing, join as a member.
This week, we examine surging memory prices, Meituan’s US-chip-free breakthrough, and a surprising data center bottleneck.
— Mario
“There is only one proved method of assisting the advancement of pure science — that of picking men of genius, backing them heavily, and leaving them to direct themselves.”
— James Bryant Conant, the chemist who ran America's wartime science, writing to the New York Times in August 1945
How much?!
Samsung is pushing for another memory price increase of up to 20% for next quarter, on top of around 90% in Q1 of 2026, and 50-60% in Q2. That’s three consecutive quarters of major price hikes for DRAM, the type of memory chip that go into everything from your phone to AI servers, driven by data centers buying up nearly all available supply. For the first time in years, memory makers like Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron hold real pricing power, which will show up in their margins and, eventually, in the price of every laptop, phone, and car you buy. For AI infrastructure, it’s a growing tax on anyone trying to build or scale compute that isn’t a hyperscaler with the leverage to lock in supply years in advance.