Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is many things. A tremendous opportunity, terrifying for some livelihoods, both an economic boon and, to those of us who remember the dawn of the internet, a financial time bomb waiting to detonate. Its voracious energy demands and need to maintain a globally competitive edge will consign Net Zero to oblivion. As if all that wasn’t enough, it is also behind why your video gaming is suddenly getting more expensive.
Specifically because of the memory and the price. According to a report in PC Gamer, the price of DRAM modules is expected to triple or even quadruple from what they cost in September before the end of the year. These are the sticks of memory that ever more hungry PC gaming needs.
A.I. data centres require DRAM, lots of it. So they are effectively cornering the market, and DRAM makers are also switching to their more profitable and A.I. friendly HBM chips rather than the DDR or GDDR types used in your PC.
There is also talk of many manufacturers discontinuing mid-level graphics cards to focus on higher-powered versions, also required by A.I. technology. This will further cause prices to spike as the shift will further narrow supply chains.
So, it’s not all funny cat-ninja images and fast e-mail drafting in the office.
