Chinese tech giant Lenovo has warned that computer RAM memory prices will never return to their old levels.
Company officials presenting at the ISC 2026 conference in San Sebastian, Spain, expressed with a humorous tone but a clear message that RAM prices "will never return to last year's levels."
Lenovo stated that current price levels will become the new normal and that prices may stabilize from 2030 onward, but could remain higher than previous years.
Although memory manufacturers have entered a race to open new factories to meet rising 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 DDR5 32 GB RAM modules has risen from around $70 to as high as $400.
Class action lawsuit against RAM giants
Meanwhile, a class action lawsuit filed by three companies and 14 individuals has accused the world's largest memory manufacturers Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron of "conspiring" to fix RAM prices.
The lawsuit alleges that these three companies reduced commercial DRAM production to focus on the less profitable high-bandwidth memory (HBM) production, thereby artificially inflating prices.
These three companies control more than 90% of the global RAM market, and memory prices have increased by approximately 700% over the past four years.
The lawsuit also notes that the same companies had formed a "criminal conspiracy" to fix prices of memory sold to U.S. firms between 1998 and 2002, with Samsung pleading guilty and paying a $300 million fine, Hynix paying $185 million, and Micron avoiding punishment by reporting the conspiracy.
The class action seeks a permanent court order to remedy the ongoing effects of the companies' behavior, which is described 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.
