RAM prices skyrocket as producers switch to supplying AI datacenters.

 

A computer shop in China. Reuters.

AI is causing a crisis in consumer RAM prices as AI demand is sucking up a huge amount of production. Reuters. The price spike is affecting all kinds of memory, but DRAM is the most effected. The shortage could cause major problems, not only for consumer electronics, but for AI data centers themselves. Inventory of chips has been greatly reduced and there are fears that the higher prices could cause the AI bubble to pop. The prices of many consumer electronics will jump as well, with lower end smartphones, PC's and video game consoles bearing the brunt of the costs. 

The crisis has caused one of the big three memory producers, Micron, to abandon their consumer division to focus on AI sales. 

My Comment:

Outside of the tech world this story has been largely ignored. But folks who are going to try and buy a new PC or video game console are likely to see a major sticker shock in a month or two. This is a major crisis and it has echoes of the GPU crisis when crypto mining became a huge thing. That bubble eventually burst but it was a very bad time to be a PC gamer. It looks like we are going to see something similar here, but the fallout could be far beyond just gaming this time around. In short, if you are on the fence about buying/building a new PC, video game console, or lower spec smartphone, you should absolutely have done it a month ago, and failing that, you should do it now. 

AI is, of course, causing the bulk of this issue. Chip companies know that they can make more profit off of the data centers that are going up than they can from PC gamers and other consumers so they are logically making the choice to do so. These data centers are used for the various LLM's like ChatGPT and Grok and they require advanced chips. So it's no surprise that these companies are focusing on that. 

It's very bad news especially for video games and the people that buy and produce them. It sounds like Xbox is going to increase prices for their consoles and if you were thinking about building a PC, expect to pay $200 or $300 for RAM alone. GPU prices are stable but the costs of SSD hard drives are getting more expensive as well. In short, it's a terrible time to try and build a PC or buy a console. 

It's also a bad time for companies to release new consoles as well. I know the Steam Machine is supposedly coming out next year and there is a good chance that might not be in the cards anymore depending on how Valve planned things. If they got a large stockpile of DRAM sitting around awaiting the launch they could be able to put it out at a fair price. But if they didn't they are going to have to price the thing as much as a full PC costs pre-spike, which means it's almost certain to fail. And that's just one example, a lot of tech companies are going to face difficult decisions as this crisis continues. 

For me personally, I should not be affected too greatly. My gaming PC is future proof for at least a couple of years, I already have 32 gigs of RAM, which should last through the crisis as production is supposed to increase in 2027. I also just bought a new laptop to replace my dying gaming laptop. It's not high end or anything but it's crazy to think that the 16 gigs of ram it has is now worth more than half of what I paid for it. My phone is new this year as well, so at the very least, I should be able to weather this storm, assuming none of my components burn out or some other disaster befalls me. 

I do wonder how long this AI craze is going to last. I use LLM's myself, as Grok came free with my blue check subscription. It's certainly a useful tool. It's great at collecting information and bouncing ideas off of it, but I still don't really understand how anyone is supposed to make money off of it. I do think that sooner or later the AI bubble is going to burst, all bubbles do, when the hype doesn't quite match the results. But until that happens anything involving tech is probably going to be very expensive. 

Treasury Department, Congressional Oversite Committee, open up investigation of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz due to Somali welfare fraud scandal.

 

Governor Tim Walz. New York Post/Reuters. 

The Treasury Department and the Congressional Oversite Committee have opened up investigations of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz due to the Somali welfare fraud scandal that cost taxpayers of the state up to $1 billion. New York Post. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said that Tim Walz was informed about the fraud but went after whistleblowers instead. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that his investigators would be looking at how money was sent to the al-Shabaab terror group in Somali via the Minnesota welfare fraud. The scandal had been bubbling under the surface for months, but new accusations have propelled the story nationally. A whistleblower account on X said that Walz was directly responsible for the fraud and did nothing to prevent the scandal despite being informed of it by his employees. 

Tim Walz is 100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota. We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response. Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression,… https://t.co/cEtbnuKmgn

— Minnesota Staff Fraud Reporting Commentary (@Minnesota_DHS) November 30, 2025

My Comment:

I wrote an in depth post about this scandal last week.  Read that if you are unfamiliar with the details of the case. The summary is that Somali immigrants in Minnesota were syphoning off hundreds of millions of dollars in welfare and social program frauds. Much of that money ended up in Somalia, feeding both sides of the civil war there, but more importantly, it was fed to the Somali terror group al-Shabaab. It's an absolutely massive scandal. 

Tim Walz is also deeply involved in the case. There are allegations against Walz that he knew about the fraud but did nothing to prevent it. Indeed, it's possible that he retaliated against people that warned about the massive red flags they were seeing in the welfare business. He could even face criminal charges if evidence is found that he covered up the fraud. That seems very unlikely but 

To be fair, I don't think Tim Walz was involved in the fraud itself. And it's for the same reason I never even considered the words of Vance Bolter, the assassin that shot two Minnesota State Senators. Tim Walz just simply not smart enough to run a fraud scheme or hire an assassin. He is not a smart guy and seems like a very good example of someone unqualified making it far in politics. 

The real question is if there was a coverup. There are allegations that Tim Walz did indeed know about the fraud and could have prevented it. This isn't proven yet, but it does seem likely. The fraud was not that well hidden and there are people online that work in Minnesota that have made the accusation that Walz was informed and even took retaliation against whistleblowers. If those accusations are proven, then I don't see how Walz has a political career. 

His greatest defense here is, again, his incompetence. I really don't have a high opinion of Walz and his management, his addition to the Kamala Harris campaign was an absolute joke, and only Walz would say in a debate "I'm friends with School Shooters!". Of course, incompetence at this scale might save him from criminal charges (if he isn't guilty of the whistleblower retaliation) but I don't think it will save his career at this point. 

Indeed, this represents a rare opportunity for Republicans in the state. Walz is somehow still running for Governor and if he does run, he faces a very good chance of losing if this scandal has legs. Absolutely nobody is happy with Walz and his performance right now, though many of his Democrat voters will still "vote blue no matter who". Minnesota is a blue state, but it is moving in the purple direction and a huge motivating scandal like this could move independents into the Republican column and keep some Democratic voters home. 

Given this, I am guessing that the National Democratic Party and the State Democratic Farmer Labor party will drop Tim Walz like a hot potato. The Democrats in general are many things, most of them bad, but I can't imagine them making such a mistake as keeping Walz in the race. He's absolutely toxic now and was an embarrassment during the 2024 Presidential race. I don't know if they will be willing to force him to resign in disgrace, but I also can't imagine that they won't force him out of the race. If they do I am fully predicting that the GOP picks up the Minnesota Governor. I doubt they would keep it for more than a term, just like Virginia, without a motivating issue like the Somali scandal, they will probably lose it after one term. 

Regardless of what happens in Minnesota, I can't imagine that Walz will ever have a career after this on the national stage. There was some chatter that he was going to run as a Minnesota Senator, and position that seemed likely that he would win. He could have even run as a long shot Presidential candidate. But there is zero chance of any of that happening. Indeed, I can't even see him on the new talking head path at this point, Democrats are going to want to wash their hands of Walz completely...