It's not just RAM. If you've tried to buy an SD card recently, you've probably noticed the sticker shock.

I was looking at SD card prices the other day and couldn't believe what I was seeing. I bought four SanDisk Extreme Pro cards last year for around S$50 to S$80 each. Now the same 512GB cards are going for S$180 to S$200. That's not a small bump, that's a 2 to 3x increase in under a year.

And it turns out this isn't just a Singapore thing. Memory card prices have exploded globally, and there's a very specific reason why.

How bad is it, really?

Pretty bad. Across the board, SD and microSD card prices have doubled or tripled since late 2025. Here are some examples from the US market, which tracks similarly worldwide:

High-capacity cards (512GB and above) have been hit the hardest. In Japan, stockouts on high-capacity microSD cards have become common. Weekly price increases of 14 to 25% became routine at one point, when historically 5 to 10% was considered severe.

Why is this happening?

The short answer: AI ate the memory supply.

The longer answer involves a perfect storm of supply cuts and demand surges in the NAND flash market. NAND flash is the underlying storage technology in SD cards, SSDs, USB drives, and essentially all solid-state storage.

AI data centres are devouring NAND

The explosive growth of AI infrastructure has created enormous demand for high-bandwidth memory and fast SSD storage. Companies like Google, Meta, Nvidia, and OpenAI are buying up massive quantities of NAND flash to fuel their data centres. In Q4 2025, the combined revenue of the top five NAND flash suppliers surged 23.8% quarter-over-quarter to US$21.17 billion, driven primarily by enterprise SSD demand from AI server deployments.

This means memory card manufacturers are now competing for whatever NAND supply is left after the AI giants have taken their share. When demand outstrips supply, prices go up for everyone.

Manufacturers cut production during the downturn

Before the current shortage, the memory industry went through an oversupply period. Manufacturers responded by cutting production and holding back expansion. Now that demand has roared back, there isn't enough capacity to meet it.

MLC NAND flash capacity is expected to decrease by 41.7% year-over-year in 2026 as major producers reduce or halt output and redirect investment toward advanced process technology. That's a massive contraction.

Prices are rising at every level of the supply chain

SanDisk raised its NAND flash contract prices by 50% in November 2025 alone, their third major increase that year. Samsung hiked memory chip prices by up to 60% compared to September 2025. TrendForce projected NAND flash prices to rise 33 to 38% in Q1 2026, with client SSDs facing increases of over 40%.

A 1TB TLC NAND chip that cost US$4.80 in July 2025 was going for US$10.70 by early 2026. That raw cost increase flows directly into the retail prices of SD cards, SSDs, and every other NAND-based product.

It's not just SD cards

This is worth emphasising: the price surge is hitting all NAND flash products. SSDs, USB drives, and memory cards are all affected. If you've noticed RAM prices climbing too, it's the same underlying dynamic. AI infrastructure demand is reshaping the entire memory market.

Phison's CEO has stated that NAND prices have more than doubled and that all 2026 production is already sold out. The company warned that SSDs could face a "pricing apocalypse" throughout 2027, and that supply will remain deficient for several years.

When will prices come back down?

The honest answer is: not anytime soon.

Most industry analysts expect the supply-demand imbalance to persist well into 2027 and potentially beyond. Manufacturers aren't rushing to add capacity because they're prioritising higher-margin AI and enterprise products. Some analysts have even warned that the widening gap between demand and supply could trigger an "industry cycle collapse" if procurement pressures continue to escalate.

There are reports of further 30% price increases expected in 2026. The memory market appears to be entering what some are calling a "supercycle," where sustained high demand and constrained supply keep prices elevated for an extended period.

What can you do about it?

If you need SD cards or SSDs, here are some practical considerations:

The bigger picture

What we're seeing with SD card prices is really just a visible symptom of a much larger shift in the technology industry. The AI boom has fundamentally changed how memory is manufactured, allocated, and priced. Consumer storage products like SD cards are no longer the priority for NAND flash manufacturers, they're the afterthought.

For photographers, videographers, gamers, and anyone who relies on removable storage, this is a frustrating new reality. The days of casually picking up a 512GB card for under US$50 appear to be over, at least for the foreseeable future.

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