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Nvidia maintains growth momentum despite rising memory costs affecting hyperscalers
Friday, April 3, 2026 at 07:17 PM
Rising memory costs, particularly for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), are impacting hyperscale data center operators while NVIDIA maintains strong positioning due to its dominance in AI hardware demand and integrated supply chain strategy.
Context
As of April 2026, a structural memory shortage is significantly impacting the AI supply chain. DRAM prices have surged, with DDR5 components jumping as much as 170% year-over-year. This shortage is driven by a massive reallocation of manufacturing capacity toward high-margin HBM and enterprise solutions to support AI infrastructure. Consequently, memory now accounts for roughly 30% of total hyperscaler capital expenditure, up from just 8% in 2023. While this cost squeeze has pressured the margins of major cloud providers, Nvidia has maintained its growth momentum.
Nvidia continues to exceed market expectations, recently reporting quarterly revenue of $57 billion and projecting $65 billion for the following period. Despite industry-wide input cost inflation, the company has managed to keep its gross margins in the mid-70s through a combination of product mix and scale. This resilience is largely attributed to the successful rollout of the Blackwell architecture and the Rubin platform, which remain the primary drivers of global data center expansion even as memory costs soar.
Sources (12)
Nvidia gives an upbeat margin forecast, to the relief of ...Memory shortage persists as AI-era supply-demand imbalance deepensThe AI frenzy is driving a memory chip supply crisis | ReutersEarnings call transcript: NVIDIA Q3 2025 sees revenue surge, stock rises By Investing.comIDC - Global Memory Shortage Crisis: Market Analysis and the Potential Impact on the Smartphone and PC Markets in 2026 AI, greed cause massive spike in memory prices - Network WorldMemory Mania: How a Once-in-Four-Decades Shortage Is Fueling a Memory Boom Memory will consume 30% of hyperscaler data center spending this year, a 4X increase over 2023 — Nvidia gets preferential supply terms well below standard market rates, says analyst firm | Tom's Hardware
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