This year’s CES had several notable announcements, including from industry heavyweights Dell (DELL), Intel (INTC) and Nvidia (NVDA) and AMD (AMD). But what is finally hitting home to onlookers is that the drastic shortage of memory and storage — caused by a surge in demand for artificial intelligence — is likely to impact how the rest of 2026 plays out.
The pricing for many dynamic random access memory contracts, or DRAM, have not yet been set for the first-quarter, but vendors are still looking for 50% or better growth, Wedbush Securities analyst Matt Bryson said.
“Hyperscalers appear to be sucking the air out [of] the room (lapping up all additional bits), with both a shift in bits to support these customers and heightened expectations around higher contract seemingly having pushed sharp lifts in secondary markets,” Bryson wrote in a note to clients. However, Bryson added that disruptions to smaller customers are “lifting,” as there is now only expected to be a mid-single-digit year-over-year decline in PCs.
Despite that, these issues are likely to gain more attention once the price increases are finalized. The increases could also wind up impacting some server customers, as the lead times on servers are “ballooning,” Bryson added.
Among the companies that could benefit from sharp increases in DRAM prices are Micron and Sandisk (SNDK). Bryson said that now that Sandisk has been removed from Apple (AAPL), it’s going up against easier comparisons and its pricing is expected to “meaningfully outperform” the industry, with a 50% increase seen as a base case.
Other potential beneficiaries include Pure Storage (PSTG) and Silicon Motion (SIMO), Bryson added.
Nvidia’s impact
The sheer size of Nvidia means that whatever it does is bound to impact the semiconductor industry noticeably. And while it too may benefit from a tight supply of memory (as it routinely tops its competitors in terms of performance), it is also likely to place further strains on the memory space.
“… NVDA’s new storage tier (attached via Blue-Field-4) appears set to add significantly to overall storage requirements (one back of the envelope calculation we encountered had the new tier adding 40%+ to AI workload requirements),” Bryson explained.
Launched in October 2025, BlueField-4 combines an Nvidia Grace CPU and Nvidia ConnectX-9 networking offering to boost compute power and help support AI factories.
Hard disk drive remand seen as ‘robust’
The hard-disk-drive space, where Western Digital (WDC) and Seagate (STX) operate, has seen “robust” demand, Bryson said. He pointed to a “significant gap between supply and orders” that is likely to become more elevated throughout the year and, possibly, into 2027.
As such, he believes pricing trends may move higher and with 2028 contracts already being negotiated, the shortage that cloud-service providers are dealing with is coming into view.
Impact on Intel and AMD?
Although the impact of rising memory and storage prices has benefited several companies, it’s clearly having some negative impact on demand. Various PC and handset makers have cut back build expectations and the industry now expects low-single-digit declines for both markets, compared to low-single-digit growth seen previously.
And given that Intel and AMD are the two largest PC-focused semiconductor companies, any decline in demand is likely to be felt by them.
For Intel as a whole, the impact of rising memory is a red flag, but the company does have other areas that could be more impactful to it, especially its manufacturing business. A successful launch of its 18A process would be a “significant positive step forward” for the Lip Bu-Tan-led company, Bryson said. Earlier this month, Intel announced it had shipped its first 18A products.
Despite that, any cuts to PC builds are a “significant point of concern” for Intel, as it impacts units, utilization levels and pricing for a segment that accounts for roughly 60% of sales. And given that Intel is also exposed to the server market, any rise in the lead times for servers could be a negative as well, Bryson added.
For AMD, the impact of rising memory prices is a bit more of a mixed picture, Bryson posited, given that much of the focus has been on its AI accelerator portfolio.
“… [We] believe AMD necessarily has some risk if PC demand deteriorates due to memory price lifts (we are less concerned around servers given AMD’s likely continued share gains on this front, and strong CSP demand where AMD is overweight),” Bryson explained.
He continued: “But we also believe AMD’s stock shifts for the foreseeable future will be driven by the company’s expected AI GPU performance (vs. other metrics). And on this front, any ability to restore shipments to China could have immediate benefits (again we are unclear on the ultimate timing of both US license grants and/or China greenlighting the purchase of U.S. AI silicon).”
