SSD and Memory Supply Challenges Loom
Here I am with your weekly reminder that the current SSD/memory crisis isn’t going away anytime soon. Phison’s CEO says the situation will persist into 2026 and beyond, and it looks pessimistic for average consumers. According to a Commercial Times report, Phison boss Pua Khein‑Seng expects NAND flash prices to keep rising because new production capacity will take four years to meet demand, potentially pushing the timeline to 2030 and beyond.
Pua notes that demand for AI infrastructure and related services should grow from late this year through early 2027. While Phison is building inventory now and trying to keep supply stable for the next two years, the main bottleneck remains NAND supply. Preliminary work on new NAND fabs has started, but the benefits won’t reach the market for some time. Micron’s Sumit Sadana echoed these concerns, saying it’s hard to bring new wafer fabs online quickly enough for the voracious AI demand.
The picture is even bleaker for storage than for system memory. DRAM shortages could ease with lighter AI models, but the massive data generated by AI servers will need to be stored somewhere, keeping storage demand high. This mismatch could worsen the overall shortage. As a result, Phison is shifting resources away from the retail market toward enterprise and AI customers, meaning consumer SSD prices may stay high. It’s hard to see them improving before 2030, and the reports suggest the opposite trend.
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