“The technology did not become more expensive because it forgot how to improve. Memory became more valuable because the world suddenly found something willing to consume almost every byte we can manufacture: artificial intelligence.” – MJ Martin
Canada Is Feeling a Global Memory Shock
For decades, one of computing’s safest assumptions was that memory would become cheaper. More gigabytes arrived every year for fewer dollars. In 2026, that relationship has been turned upside down.
Canadian buyers are now seeing sharply higher prices for computer RAM, SSDs, smartphones, servers, and some forms of removable storage. This is not simply inflation. It is a fundamental supply-and-demand distortion caused largely by the extraordinary growth of artificial intelligence infrastructure.
There are really two markets involved.
* DRAM is the fast working memory used by computers, servers, smartphones, GPUs, and cameras.
* NAND Flash is non-volatile storage used in SSDs, smartphones, SD cards, CFexpress cards, USB drives, and countless embedded devices.
Both are under pressure.
AI Is Consuming the Memory Factory
AI computers require astonishing quantities of memory. More importantly, manufacturers such as Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron can earn considerably more supplying hyperscale data centres than supplying an ordinary laptop or camera.
High Bandwidth Memory, or HBM, makes the situation worse. Think of a semiconductor fabrication plant as farmland. If one extremely valuable crop suddenly requires three times as much land for the same harvest, less acreage remains for everything else.
Micron has previously reported that HBM3E requires roughly three times as much silicon as DDR5 to produce the same number of bits. SK hynix similarly explains that HBM’s larger dies, TSV interconnections, stacking, and more complicated packaging consume substantially more manufacturing capacity. (Micron Investors)
Consequently, AI is not merely buying memory. It is effectively consuming the factories that would otherwise manufacture conventional memory.
TrendForce reported on September 7 that DRAM suppliers’ inventories remain at historically low levels, while additional production is being directed primarily toward servers. Conventional DRAM contract prices are still expected to increase another 13 to 18 percent during the third quarter of 2026. (TrendForce)
That follows extraordinary earlier increases. TrendForce estimated that conventional DRAM contract prices increased approximately 90 to 95 percent quarter over quarter during the first quarter of 2026. (TrendForce)
Storage Is Being Hit Too
NAND Flash is experiencing much the same phenomenon. Enterprise AI systems require enormous SSD arrays to feed processors with data. Manufacturers therefore have an incentive to direct NAND production toward high-capacity enterprise SSDs rather than inexpensive consumer products.
TrendForce reported that NAND contract prices were expected to increase another 10 to 15 percent in the third quarter of 2026. Earlier this year, some categories experienced dramatically larger increases. (TrendForce)
This explains the strange rise in cost per megabyte or gigabyte. Semiconductor technology has not suddenly forgotten how to make inexpensive memory. The industry’s production mix has changed. The highest-paying customer is increasingly the AI data centre.
What Gets Hurt?
Computers are among the biggest casualties. RAM modules and SSDs represent a much greater proportion of the bill of materials than they did only a year ago. TrendForce estimates that CPU, DRAM, and SSD components have risen from about 45 percent of the manufacturing cost of a representative US$900 notebook in early 2025 to 68 percent by the third quarter of 2026. (TrendForce)
Smartphones are also vulnerable. For a mainstream 8 GB RAM plus 256 GB storage phone, TrendForce estimated memory contract costs in early 2026 were nearly 200 percent higher year over year. (TrendForce)
Cameras are affected, although somewhat differently. A Nikon Z9, for example, contains DRAM for image buffering, but the larger consumer impact comes from CFexpress and SD cards, which use NAND Flash. High-performance CFexpress cards require fast NAND, sophisticated controllers, thermal management, and sustained write performance. They therefore cannot escape a NAND shortage simply because they are photography products.
Gaming systems, tablets, televisions, drones, networking equipment, automobiles, industrial electronics, NAS systems, and smart appliances are exposed as well. Even devices containing relatively little memory can be affected when particular legacy DRAM or NAND products become scarce.
Will Prices Come Back Down?
Eventually, yes. Soon, probably not.
There is an important distinction between DRAM and NAND. TrendForce currently expects DRAM supply to remain structurally tight through 2027, because HBM continues consuming advanced manufacturing capacity and meaningful new fab output takes years to arrive. (TrendForce)
NAND has a better outlook. Additional capacity, manufacturing improvements, and weakened consumer demand are expected to move NAND toward greater supply in the second half of 2027, creating downward pressure on prices. (TrendForce)
So prices may stop climbing quite as rapidly before they actually decline. That distinction is important. A 10 percent quarterly increase after a 70 percent increase may feel like relief, but it is certainly not cheap memory.
A New Economics of Computing
We may be witnessing one of the most fascinating unintended consequences of the AI revolution. AI is not confined to data centres. By consuming HBM, DRAM, NAND, silicon wafers, packaging capacity, electricity, and capital, it changes the economics of seemingly unrelated products sitting on Canadian store shelves.
The computer on your desk, the smartphone in your pocket, and the CFexpress card in your camera are suddenly competing, indirectly, with billion-dollar AI data centres for semiconductor manufacturing capacity.
That is why memory prices appear aberrant.
The technology did not become worse.
**Memory simply became strategically valuable.
**For a Canadian consumer buying technology today, I would not count on DRAM becoming materially cheaper in the next six to twelve months. NAND-based products such as SSDs and camera cards have a better chance of meaningful relief during 2027, particularly in its second half.
A useful question to consider is whether this becomes the new normal: will manufacturers keep increasing RAM and storage capacities every generation, or will expensive memory cause computers, cameras, and smartphones to remain at today’s capacities for much longer?
About the Author:
Michael Martin is the Vice President of Technology with Metercor Inc., a Smart Meter, IoT, and Smart City systems integrator based in Canada. He has more than 40 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies. He is a business and technology consultant. He was a senior executive consultant for 15 years with IBM, where he worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX).
Martin served on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V). He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology. He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now Ontario Tech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario – Centennial College, Humber College, George Brown College, Durham College, Ryerson Polytechnic University [now Toronto Metropolitan University]. For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section.
He holds three master’s degrees – in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and seven major certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has completed over 80 next generation MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) [aka Micro Learning] continuous education programs in a wide variety of topics, including: Economics, Python Programming, Internet of Things, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Power BI, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, Indigenous Canada awareness, and more.
Martin is a volunteer, a photographer, a learner, a technologist, a philosophizer, and a romantic optimist.