AI Boom Impacts World's Storage, Memory Hardware Supplies

The impact of the AI Boom in 2021 is now being felt as the growing industry continues to affect the world's storage and memory hardware supplies.

According to a Forbes article, the surge in demand for AI technology has started to affect the industry's supply of DRAM, NAND Flash, HDD, and even magnetic tape needed to build high-end hardware.

High-end hardware is a common building material for AI data centers that many tech giants have since launched to train their new AI models.

The report came after more chip makers like Samsung and TSMC announced plans to expand AI hardware productions to meet the surge in demand.

Will it Affect Hardware Prices for Regular Customers?

While the demand for more high-end hard drives continues to grow, there is no indication that there will be a huge change in the prices for more general storage and memory hardware.

As mentioned in the report, the same surge in demand for AI has also ignited the rise in companies ready to supply data centers with affordable

This is not to mention that hardware industry leaders like NVIDIA and AMD are different from the hard drive supplies for personal computers and small-scale operations.

Computer drive manufacturer Western Digital even announced new low-cost products dedicated to supporting AI workflows on top of its usual

Other chip makers like Intel and Qualcomm have also launched "dedicated hardware capable of running complex AI" functions as they cater to both business enterprises and regular customers.

AI Surge Hits Power Supplies

Hardware supplies are not the only resource supply being affected by the massive surge in AI demand over the past years.

In the US alone, data centers consumed 19 gigawatts of electricity last year, higher than the power consumption needed by other small- and medium-scale businesses in the country.

Power consumption is expected to balloon to 4.6% to 9.1% of the total US electricity supply by 2030 if a steady rise in demand continues, according to the Electric Power Research Institute.

In turn, more natural gas suppliers have slowed down the retirement of their coal-powered plans to keep the country's energy supply steady amid the growing demand surge.