How UK Organisations Can Protect Themselves From the Memory and Chip Shortage
The 2025-2026 memory shortage is structural, driven by manufacturers reallocating wafer capacity to high-bandwidth memory for AI, and no major analyst expects relief before late 2027. DRAM contract prices rose 90-95 per cent in Q1 2026 alone, UK retail memory more than quadrupled in four months, and vendors including HPE have cut quote validity to 14 days with repricing rights to the day of shipment. The piece sets out what this does to UK hardware budgets and the practical mitigations available, from contractual price locks and capped terms to refurbished kit, memory tiering, reclaiming over-allocated RAM and running existing hardware longer.
