The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence is now putting serious pressure on computer memory prices. Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu has raised concerns over a dramatic surge in memory costs, citing a Tom’s Hardware report that shows prices climbing by nearly 500% over the past 12 months. A 64GB DDR5-5600 memory kit that averaged around $191 in August 2025 reportedly jumped to $1,118 by August 2026, an increase of roughly 485%.
Vembu said businesses have so far tried to absorb these rising costs instead of passing them on to customers, but maintaining existing prices is becoming increasingly difficult. He also pointed to the growing cost of AI tokens and massive AI infrastructure investments as additional financial pressures on technology companies.According to Vembu, the AI investment boom is affecting far more than just GPUs. Demand is putting pressure on memory, CPUs, electricity generation, transformers, backup generators and cooling infrastructure, with the ripple effects potentially making smartphones, laptops and other computing devices more expensive.
Vembu also argued that the era of treating computer memory as “almost free” may be coming to an end. He called for more memory-efficient programming languages, smarter compilers and AI systems designed to consume fewer resources, saying software efficiency could become increasingly important as hardware costs rise. Drawing a parallel with the telecom investment boom of the late 1990s, Vembu warned that even transformative technology can create market imbalances when investment accelerates too quickly. His message is clear: AI may be driving the next technology revolution, but the race to build it is creating a costly ripple effect across the entire computing ecosystem.
