Apple Cutting Back 2026 Hardware Shipments Due to Memory Shortage

[Sosab123]

Are there any memory industry insiders on this forum? Are any of the memory suppliers working on significantly expanding production capacity?

I realise that fabs take a significant amount of time and money to build so if yes (to my question above) it wouldn’t be a quick fix but I’m wondering if new fabs planned or under construction are now on a much bigger scale than would maybe have been planned a year or two ago in order to better match supply with this explosion in demand.

I’ve read many posts from people longing for the AI bubble to burst so that some sanity returns to the memory market but I’m wondering whether there might be an alternative light at the end of this tunnel - the supply-side adapting to this new world order.

Edit: Sorry, I missed previous posts asking the same question. I’m still very interested in any detailed answers though in terms of when sufficient extra capacity might come on line to ease the current situation.

Honestly even if 10 new fabs magically appeared tomorrow I dont think we’d suddenly have a memory surplus. The AI giants would just eat the additional supply and we’d probably end up right back where we started.


The thing about AI is that there really isnt much of a point where “more memory” stops being useful in the same way it does with normal consumer hardware. Bigger models, longer context windows, larger batches, more concurrent inference, bigger KV caches etc all create ways to use more memory.


Obviously there are diminishing returns eventually. AI doesnt have an infinite appetite for memory. But as memory becomes available and cheaper it can also make workloads that werent previously economical or practical worth doing.


So I dont think the question is really “when will enough fabs come online to fix the shortage?”


Its more like


can the memory industry increase supply faster than the AI industry can figure out new ways to consume it?


And honestly I’m not convinced it can.

 

[max2]

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[zenmacx]

This is going to be so much fun!

Indeed...

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A wonderful opportunity to get your money's worth out of the iPhone and other Apple gear you currently own.

 

[Ethrem]

Honestly even if 10 new fabs magically appeared tomorrow I dont think we’d suddenly have a memory surplus. The AI giants would just eat the additional supply and we’d probably end up right back where we started.


The thing about AI is that there really isnt much of a point where “more memory” stops being useful in the same way it does with normal consumer hardware. Bigger models, longer context windows, larger batches, more concurrent inference, bigger KV caches etc all create ways to use more memory.


Obviously there are diminishing returns eventually. AI doesnt have an infinite appetite for memory. But as memory becomes available and cheaper it can also make workloads that werent previously economical or practical worth doing.


So I dont think the question is really “when will enough fabs come online to fix the shortage?”


Its more like


can the memory industry increase supply faster than the AI industry can figure out new ways to consume it?


And honestly I’m not convinced it can.

The endless burning of cash will come to an end at some point. Investors are going to want a return on their investment that they're simply not going to find with most AI solutions that are being pushed right now. Like the dotcom boom, there will be big winners, but there will be major losers, and the appetite for risk will moderate eventually.