Samsung's 60% DRAM Price Hike Signals a New Phase of Global Memory Tightening

Summary

Samsung hikes memory chip prices by up to 60% (image credits: samsung.com) Samsung’s memory price Surges by as much as 60% since September, according to a Reuters report published Friday [1]. The move marks one of the steepest short-term price increases in the DRAM market in years — and underscores how surging demand from AI data centers is straining global supply chains. The world’s largest memory manufacturer, Samsung, is now commanding significantly higher contract prices from its customers for high-density server DRAM modules. For buyers across the PC, server, and IT hardware industries, the implications could be felt well into 2026. A Rapid and Uneven Price Escalation According to Reuters, Samsung’s contract pricing for a 32 GB DDR5 memory module climbed from roughly $149 in September to about $239 in November 2025 — a jump of more than 60 percent within just two months. Prices for other capacities, such as 16 GB and 128 GB modules, reportedly rose between 40 and 50 percent, while 64 GB and 96 GB units saw increases exceeding 30 percent [1]. A related analysis by Tom’s Hardware [2] noted that these hikes began in late summer, but accelerated rapidly as data center orders for AI workloads soaked up available capacity. By mid-November, contract pricing for several server-grade DRAM products had reached their highest levels since before the pandemic — effectively resetting the market baseline. Samsung declined to comment publicly on the specific pricing changes. However, analysts cited by Reuters said the move reflects a combination of supply constraints, production prioritization for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), and a global inventory shortage among large buyers such as cloud providers and enterprise OEMs. AI Infrastructure Boom Tightens Memory Supply The primary catalyst behind the surge is the explosive growth of AI infrastructure.Every new data center built for large language model (LLM) training or inference consumes vast quantities of DDR5 and HBM memory. Wi...