After nearly 30 years, Crucial will stop selling RAM to consumers

DRAM contract prices rose 171 percent year over year, according to industry data. Jerry Chen, general manager of memory maker TeamGroup, warned the situation will worsen in the first half of 2026 as distributors exhaust remaining supplies. He expects supply constraints to continue until the end of 2027 or beyond.

The problem goes directly to the heart of the tech industry's artificial intelligence mania. The creation of new AI infrastructure has created unprecedented demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), the specialized DRAM used in AI accelerators from Nvidia and AMD. Memory manufacturers were redistribution manufacturing capacity shifted from consumer products to these more profitable enterprise components, and Micron pre-sold all of its products to HBM through 2026.

For now, the structural imbalance between AI demand and consumer supply shows no signs of abating. The OpenAI Stargate project is reported to signed agreements up to 900,000 DRAM wafers per month, which could account for nearly 40 percent of global production.

The shortage has already forced companies to adapt. As reported by Ars' Andrew Cunningham, Framework laptop maker stopped selling standalone RAM kits at the end of November to prevent scalping and said he will likely have to raise prices soon.

For Micron, the math is clear: Enterprise customers pay more and buy in bulk. But for the DIY PC community, this decision will leave PC builders with one less option when choosing RAM modules. In a statement, Sadana spoke about the brand's 29-year history.

“Thanks to its dedicated community of consumers, the Crucial brand has become synonymous with technical leadership, quality and reliability in leading memory and storage products,” Sadana said. “We would like to thank our millions of customers, hundreds of partners and all the Micron team members who have supported Crucial's growth over the past 29 years.”