Gotta create artificial scarcity if there's not any real scarcity or the plebs might start thinking
this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2025
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artificial scarcity
From the article:
This implies that Nvidia cannot get enough GDDR7 memory to produce GPUs at its current rate. Alternatively, it implies that Nvidia expects significantly reduced GPU sales in 2026, possibly due to rising NAND and DRAM costs and their impact on PC prices.
That seems a lot more plausible to me than Nvidia trying to intentionally constrain GPU supplies. They just need to expect that the memory shortage will affect their gaming sales. We know that there is a massive RAM shortage. I mean, you don't need to introduce other factors to explain that move.
On a similar note, I've seen articles talking about how PC vendors expect revenue to drop drastically in the near term (since they'll have to hike prices because of the RAM constraints driving up their RAM costs, which in turn will price some consumers out of the market, which will reduce their sales until more supply of RAM relative to demand becomes available). I haven't seen anything about them cutting production, but I would expect them to do so; otherwise they'd just build up a bunch of computers that won't sell.
And I'd bet that there are other companies that will be impacted, all kinds of things that one might not think of as computer vendors that use memory in their devices and suddenly need to hike prices and expect to see sales impacted.
They could release the same 2025 number of GPUs and still not have enough to meet the 2026 demands. Nvidia has been not making enough to meet demand for a while now.
GN is going to have fun with this story
The article is all speculation about RAM availability, but somehow doesn't even mention AI.
My comment is speculation too, but Nvidia almost certainly has one of the most reliable supplies of RAM. This would suggest they're doing the obvious thing and putting their supply in enterprise AI products, while leaving the gaming community (who they owe their success to) fighting for price-gouged scraps.
They owe their start to the gaming community, but their success has largely been off the back of being first to "sell shovels" for crypto and AI.
They've kinda outgrown us sadly. I kinda wonder if they'll spin out the GPU business one day.
Alternatively, they see the writing on the wall and are pre-emptively raising GPU prices so they better weather the crash.
Alt: the money they helped launder through LLM firms for criminal orgs who started crypto farms is finally running out.
Historians of the future will mark this event as the beginning of the end of civilization.