Micron says memory shortages are here for the foreseeable future

Even with its new fabs coming online, demand will exceed supply

Memory-maker Micron Technology has predicted that RAM shortages are here to stay, meaning higher prices for servers probably are, too.

As The Register has previously reported, memory-makers are shifting production to the high-bandwidth memory needed for AI applications, which they can sell for fat profits. That move means they’ve reduced production of other forms of memory even as the AI boom also creates demand for servers. The result is higher memory prices, leading major server-makers to warn that the prices they charge will have to rise by up to 15 percent.

In its Q1 2026 earnings announcement on Wednesday, Micron suggested this is the new normal.

“Over the last few months, our customers' AI data center build-out plans have driven a sharp increase in demand forecast for memory and storage,” CEO Sanjay Mehrotra told investors. “We believe that the aggregate industry supply will remain substantially short of the demand for the foreseeable future.”

That’s not necessarily bad news for Micron, which won $13.64 billion of revenue for the quarter, a 56 percent jump from Q1 2025’s $8.7 billion. Net income leapt from last year’s $2 billion to $5.2 billion. Earnings per share reached $4.78, well beyond the expected $3.94. The company forecast Q2 revenue will reach $18.7 billion, which, if achieved would represent 133 percent year-over-year growth.

No wonder the company’s share price popped eight percent in after-hours trading.

Micron execs reported good progress at new fabs it’s currently building, which will start making memory in 2026 and 2027. Mehrotra said the company’s efforts to create HBM4 memory are also going well, with yields improving faster than was the case when Micron started production of HBM3 and increased volume of production likely from Q2.

But even with its manufacturing facilities firing on all cylinders, Micron sees more demand it may struggle to meet. Mehrotra said the increasing use of AI to produce videos will increase buyers’ hunger for solid-state disks. So will the shift from AI training to inferencing. The CEO also expects that manufacturers of smartphones and PCs will want to include more memory, to ensure AI workloads perform well on those devices.

More memory will, of course, increase the price of those machines, too, and help Micron to the 67 or 68 percent gross margin it predicts for its next quarter. ®