It's become an all-too-familiar story: the rising cost of memory. Thanks to the insatiable appetite for HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) from AI data centers, memory manufacturers have been diverting their resources to produce this highly lucrative commodity, leaving reduced supply of the NAND flash used in camera memory cards and SSDs. And as we know, when supply is tight, prices rise, which is why we've seen such a relentless increase in the cost of memory cards throughout 2026.
Many will therefore be hoping for a reprieve, but according to Samsung, one of the world's largest memory manufacturers responsible for around a third of global memory production, the situation is likely to get worse, not better.
Samsung has stated that it expects the memory supply to be even tighter in 2027 due to even greater demand from AI companies, and things may not get much better in 2028. It’s not just Samsung that predicts such a dire outlook for memory pricing. SanDisk is another major player in the memory market, and it too has forecast significant supply constraints, while having multi-year contracts with AI clients consuming its manufacturing capacity for the immediate future.
It's not just memory cards and SSDs that have seen steep price rises in 2026. Any consumer electronics requiring fast NAND flash has been subject to the memory shortage, from camera phones to games consoles. As long as memory producers like Samsung, Micron and SanDisk have their order books filled for years to come by AI companies willing to pay top dollar for HBM, everyday consumers like you and me wanting a new CFexpress card or portable SSD will find a dwindling supply with inflated pricing.
The next few years could be less bleak if you're a shareholder in one of the memory giants though. The stock price of Samsung Electronics, SanDisk and Micron have skyrocketed in the last 12 months, and analysts predict they could rise still higher thanks to unprecedented AI demand.
