Chinese tech giant Lenovo has warned that PC RAM prices will never return to their previous levels.
Company officials presenting at the ISC 2026 conference in San Sebastian, Spain, said with a witty but clear message that RAM prices "will never return to last year's levels."
Lenovo stated that current price levels are the new normal and that prices may stabilize from 2030 onward, but could remain higher than in previous years.
Although memory manufacturers are racing to open new factories to meet growing demand and lower prices, demand is so high that even new facilities from giants like SK Hynix and Samsung are not enough to bring prices down.
The price of a DDR5 32 GB RAM module, previously around $70, has risen to as high as $400.
Class-action lawsuit targets RAM giants
Meanwhile, a class-action lawsuit filed by three companies and 14 individuals accused the world's largest memory makers Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron of "conspiring" to fix RAM prices.
The lawsuit alleges that these three companies reduced commercial DRAM production and focused on producing less profitable high-bandwidth memory (HBM), thereby artificially raising prices.
It notes that due to these three companies, which control more than 90% of the global RAM market, memory prices have increased by approximately 700% over the past four years.
The lawsuit also recalls that the same companies engaged in a "criminal conspiracy" to fix prices for memory sold to US companies between 1998 and 2002, with Samsung pleading guilty and paying a $300 million fine, Hynix paying $185 million, and Micron escaping punishment by reporting the conspiracy.
The class action seeks a permanent court order to remedy the ongoing effects of the companies' behavior, which the lawsuit describes as "illegal and anti-competitive."
The RAM crisis has led to price increases for many consumer products, from PlayStation and Xbox consoles to mobile phones and tablets like the iPad.
