SK Hynix expect the hardware crisis to continue through 2030

2 Nov 2026 at 10:29 am UTC
By Liam Squires-Hand

Thought the hardware crisis would be over next year, or the year after? We're seemingly going to be stuck for quite a while longer.

How long? 2030, in fact, if you are to believe the latest coming out of SK Hynix. Taken from comments in the SK Hynix 3Q26 Financial Results, they said pretty clearly how they expect the memory supply shortage to persist through 2030:

"SK hynix analyzed that a virtuous cycle has taken hold in which AI-driven productivity gains and new revenue generation in areas such as software development, customer service, and search lead to greater AI adoption, which in turn drives increased investment in infrastructure. It also projected that, as the drivers of AI investment move beyond the early stage, when a small number of companies accounted for most of it, and broaden to include general enterprises and nation-level initiatives, the global AI data center infrastructure market will continue to grow steadily.

The company likewise expects the memory market to sustain its growth, led in the short term by enterprise and personal AI and, over the mid-to-long term, by physical AI such as autonomous driving and robotics.

The company assessed that supply, on the other hand, is not keeping pace with the growth of the market. Given technical difficulty of leading-edge processes and the long lead time required to build new production facilities, it expects the structure in which demand exceeds supply to persist through 2030."

It's not looking good for us lowly consumers is it? I'm glad I have my Steam Machine, Steam Frame and a good PC - should all last me quite a number of years - hopefully well past the AI bubble popping.

What makes it especially difficult is all the meetings between the hardware vendors, and the AI companies. Only recently it was also announced that OpenAI and Samsung had a big meeting to secure more hardware and deepen their ties.

I said only recently in the Raspberry Pi 5 price increase article how the hardware vendors will favourite data centres, because they can sell a lot more and for higher prices and make a lot more money.

Things are looking rough huh? Everything consumer-related sucks right now.

🌐 External Sources: news.skhynix.com, news.samsung.com Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com. Tags: Hardware, Misc 9 Likes Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:Steam Frame CAD files released, plus an update on reservation waiting timesHighlights from the Triple-I Initiative Showcase - October 2026 EditionElectronic Arts (EA) to shut down BioWare and cancel the next Mass EffectProton Experimental brings new fixes for Helldivers 2, BeamNG.drive and more All posts need to follow our rules. Please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Readers can also email us for any issues or concerns.