AI demand drives surge in GPU and memory component prices

The surge in artificial intelligence demand is driving significant price increases across the semiconductor and memory markets. High demand for AI infrastructure has created a bottleneck in high-performance memory, specifically impacting NAND Flash and DRAM prices. This trend has directly contributed to rising costs for RAM, SSDs, and graphics cards.

In the GPU market, NVIDIA's RTX 50 series has seen a 66% price increase between November 2025 and October 2026, with the RTX 5090 experiencing a spike of over 132%. AMD's RX 9000 series and Intel Arc cards have also seen increases of 46% and 38%, respectively. These rising costs were noted to have begun in China before spreading.

Simultaneously, memory manufacturer Micron Technology is seeing record-breaking financial results driven by AI hardware demand. While analysts from Rosenblatt and Mizuho have raised price targets for Micron to $1,900 and $1,400 respectively, the company faces scrutiny regarding profit margins. Micron reported record quarterly revenue of $54.229 billion for Q4 2026, with projections for Q1 2027 reaching $61.5 billion, though adjusted gross margins are expected to be slightly lower at 86.25%.