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In focus
- Memory chip prices are rising – a lot – raising concerns about SEA’s data center boom.
- The platforms are winning in Southeast Asia’s ecommerce race, but everyone else is getting squeezed.
- Memory chip makers – yes, the same ones mentioned in our featured story – are posting record profits and lifting markets.
Hello reader,
Memory isn’t something you really appreciate until you start to lose it. This isn’t just a warning to the Gen X and elder Millennials out there – it’s also a warning to everyone in the IT business that memory is getting a lot more expensive.
Over the past year, prices of DRAM and NAND flash chips have exploded. The impact is felt everywhere, from memory sticks to mobile phones to data centers.
The problem is a simple case of supply and demand.
Supply, because hyperscalers – seeking to establish uninterrupted access to their data – need high-bandwidth memory to build their massive data centers, and they have the money to dominate the market.
Demand, because memory chip makers can’t – or maybe won’t – expand their capacity fast enough.
This problem is going to disproportionately affect Southeast Asia. The price tag to build data centers is already up 30% in some areas, depending on the type of GPU being installed. The ongoing energy issues and supply chain disruption caused by the war in the Middle East won’t help either.
Our featured story today looks at what this memory chip shortage means for SEA and tries to answer the question of just how long this will go on for.
Scott Shuey, senior editor
Top Story
SEA’s AI buildout is caught in a global memory squeeze
Image credit: Ulla
Southeast Asia’s data center boom is running into a supply wall. AI giants dominate the memory chip industry’s output, leaving smaller cloud operators in the region to compete for what’s left.
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