| Pictured: a bounty of riches in 2026. Photo: Richard Butler |
If you’ve shopped for any sort of electronic device recently or have kept up with the news, you’ve likely caught wind that there’s something up with memory chips. But what exactly is going on, and will it affect photographic gear too?
What’s happening with the chips?
The inescapable tech story over the past few years has been the emergence of generative AI systems. For reasons that are, frankly, mostly boring, the companies making the AI models need tons of memory and storage to train them. And because investors have been feverishly throwing money at anything branded “AI,” they can get their hands on as much as they want. Which is to say: most of it.
RAM vs. memory vs. storageRAM, aka memory, is the short-term storage that computers and cameras use to store temporary data. Typically, data stored in RAM will disappear once the device is turned off. It’s made with DRAM chips. Storage, meanwhile, is more permanent. That job is handled by devices like SD cards, SSDs, and hard drives. Solid-state storage is typically made using NAND chips. |
There are currently three companies making the chips that end up in almost every device with memory and storage: SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron. They’ve all said that demand for both their DRAM and NAND chips has increased enormously, and that they’re essentially selling as much as they can make.
Producing these chips is one of the most complicated things that humans do, so you can’t just spin up production overnight; it can take years to plan and build new factories, even if you’re willing to bet that this isn’t all a bubble and that demand will stay this high. That means these companies have to decide where to allocate their supply: do they use the limited number of silicon wafers and production lines they have to make the high-power, expensive chips that several companies with seemingly infinite money are frothing at the mouth to buy, or the lower-margin, run-of-the-mill stuff that powers consumer devices?
You probably won’t be shocked to hear which one is winning out. As a result, the prices that consumers and the companies making any consumer devices that have storage and RAM – essentially any piece of tech – have gone up substantially. As for how that’s specifically impacted photographers…
How has it affected SD cards?
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| Photo: Mitchell Clark |
It might seem like SD cards should be completely unrelated to the AI fracas; surely the companies training those models are using something much higher-end, right?
Well, yes, but the rub is that SD cards use the same kind of NAND chips as the super-fast SSDs that datacenters need. They’re not as advanced, sure, but making one means not making the other, so SD card makers will almost certainly have to pay more for the storage chips they’re using.
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| This price chart is for the Lexar 128GB Silver SD card, but we saw a similar shape for various other cards from them and other brands. Chart: CamelCamelCamel |
We’re just starting to see price increases hit camera storage, but it’s happened fast; according to data from Amazon price tracking site CamelCamelCamel, several of the cards we checked have nearly doubled in price since the end of 2025. This was true of both lower-end cards with 32GB and 64GB capacities, as well as higher-end ones.
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Curiously, we didn’t see the same trend in the higher-performance CFexpress Type B models that we checked. However, we wouldn’t rely on that continuing to be the case as manufacturers continue to sell through the stock that they produced when NAND supply wasn’t so tight.
How has it affected computers?
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| Even if you’re lucky enough to have a computer with replaceable or upgradable RAM, you might struggle to afford the parts. Photo: Mathew Anderson |
Computer memory, or RAM, has perhaps seen the biggest impact, with prices on upgrade kits doubling or tripling in price. While consumers don’t typically install new RAM into their computers – or indeed, even own computers with upgradable memory (thanks, Apple) – those that do will really have to weigh how badly they need it.
It will also likely hurt if you’re looking to buy a new computer; manufacturers will also be facing difficulties getting their hands on memory, and will either have to cut how much they include or raise prices. Before the boom, we would’ve suggested getting at least 32GB of memory, since it was typically a sensible upgrade that could ensure your computer was usable for longer. Now, though, we’d just advise not going below 16GB, if you can help it.
Storage has also been impacted. While SSDs (both portable and internal) don’t seem to have their prices hit as hard, many suppliers seem to be struggling to keep them in stock. Unfortunately, conventional spinning disk hard drives also seem to have been hit as well; we’ve seen several reports from people struggling to find any available to buy, and manufacturers like Western Digital are saying they’ve sold out their production capacity for at least the next two years. If you’re running out of storage on your computer or think you may in the near future, we would suggest you start looking for an external drive now, rather than later.
What’s the impact on cameras?
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| Somewhere on the a7 V’s motherboard (or built into the processor) is a memory chip that acts as the camera’s buffer. Photo: Mitchell Clark |
While most cameras don’t have built-in storage, they still need memory for their buffers and to run their operating systems. So far, we haven’t seen any manufacturers explicitly cite the shortage as a problem or raise their global prices substantially. However, we also wouldn’t be surprised if we see something like that in the future.
Is there an end in sight?
It’s hard to say when the situation will get better. Both Micron and SK Hynix have reported selling out their entire production capacity for the rest of 2026. That doesn’t mean that nothing will be produced for consumers – presumably some of that capacity has been sold to companies that will package those memory and storage chips into consumer devices – but it does mean that the supply situation isn’t likely to change for a while. It’s also hard to imagine the situation changing all that much next year, either. Unless stock market enthusiasm for AI tanks and companies have to severely cut back on how much memory and storage they’re buying, it’s not like there’s a ton of new production capacity set to come online in the short term.
What can you do about it?
As for what you can do about it, I again have to be incredibly unhelpful and say that, in the short term, there’s not really much to be done on an individual level. Voting with your dollar doesn’t work all that well when you’re so economically outgunned.
There are a few options, though: you can continue to make do with what you have, while recognizing that you’re using a scarce resource. If you were previously a little careless with your memory cards or external hard drives, now’s the time to start taking a little better care of them.
You can wait it out, with the hope that the AI bubble will deflate before you need to make any purchases
If you know you’ll need to purchase new computer equipment, memory, or storage in the near-to-mid term, you can just accept that prices are more likely to go down, rather than up. Sadly, that means stocking up on what you know you’ll need. Or, you can wait it out, with the hope that the AI bubble will deflate before you need to make any purchases… and that when it does, it’s in a controlled enough manner that memory and storage prices are still in your top 10 biggest financial concerns.