Unlike past cycles driven solely by new demand (e.g., mobile phones), the current AI memory super cycle is different. The new demand driver, HBM, actively constrains the supply of traditional DRAM by competing for the same limited wafer capacity, intensifying and prolonging the shortage.

The primary bottleneck for increasing DRAM supply is a "clean room constraint"—a physical shortage of space in existing fabs to install new manufacturing equipment. This limitation means that even with massive investment, significant new wafer capacity is unlikely to come online meaningfully before 2028.

The AI boom is creating a supply chain crisis for PC manufacturers. The massive demand for GPUs and RAM from the AI industry is driving up component prices, directly threatening the affordability and profitability of Razer's core gaming laptop business.

With new factory capacity years away, the only immediate lever for increasing DRAM supply is "node migration." This involves shifting production to more advanced manufacturing processes (like 1B and 1C) that can produce more memory bits per silicon wafer. The speed of this migration is the critical factor for easing supply.

The critical constraint on AI and future computing is not energy consumption but access to leading-edge semiconductor fabrication capacity. With data centers already consuming over 50% of advanced fab output, consumer hardware like gaming PCs will be priced out, accelerating a fundamental shift where personal devices become mere terminals for cloud-based workloads.

Producing specialized High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) for AI is wafer-intensive, yielding only a third of the memory bits per wafer compared to standard DRAM. As makers shift capacity to profitable HBM, they directly reduce the supply available for consumer electronics, creating a severe shortage.

In a surprising market inversion, the price surge for commodity DRAM has become so extreme that its profit margins now exceed those of specialized High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM). This creates a strategic dilemma for producers, forcing them to balance short-term profits against long-term AI market position.

Despite record profits driven by AI demand for High-Bandwidth Memory, chip makers are maintaining a "conservative investment approach" and not rapidly expanding capacity. This strategic restraint keeps prices for critical components high, maximizing their profitability and effectively controlling the pace of the entire AI hardware industry.

The intense demand for memory chips for AI is causing a shortage so severe that NVIDIA is delaying a new gaming GPU for the first time in 30 years. This demonstrates a major inflection point where the AI industry's hardware needs are creating significant, tangible ripple effects on adjacent, multi-billion dollar consumer markets.