crisis

First he tied up Samsung, now SK Hynix. At the RAM crisis party, Nvidia has secured the cake

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In any group of friends, there is one person who always tries to get along with everyone. In the technology world, that person is Nvidia. The American giant that until not so long ago was the one who dominated the conversation in the field of video game hardware, now it is synonymous with artificial intelligence. Nvidia is shaping the sector with billion-dollar investmentsbut also with its hardware. The H200 and the Blackwell B200 are the most coveted chips in the sectorwhich leads to everyone wants that platform and, therefore, Nvidia is one of the whales that is drinking the global stock of RAM. For Vera Rubin, their new platform, they need much more memory and, after reaching an agreement to ensure the best available that Samsung makesthey have achieved another with the other leg of the global RAM market: SK Hynix. And this is about data centersbut also eye-catching RTX Spark chiprobotics, accelerating development times and how consumers have years left to continue suffering with the supply of chips. Nvidia, SK Hynix and the deal to manufacture everything Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is traveling through Seoul. This time his objective was not to visit the new Samsung facilities (relations with Samsung They are already more than consolidated), but to secure the other South Korean (and world) memory chip giant: SK Hynix. During their visit, the two CEOs staged a multi-year agreement by which Nvidia will have priority access to the most refined memory coming out of the SK Hynix foundry. Because Nvidia already warned in January that this year it would need all the silicon possible, and seeing the roadmap it is something that is perfectly understood. As we say, they are immersed in the Vera Rubin AI platform for the training and inference of artificial intelligence models; have just presented the RTX Spark chips in response to Apple Silicon and Qualcomm chips for computers Windows ARM and then there’s another leg that we don’t talk about as much, but that they are pushing hard and that also requires a lot of memory chips: the Jetson Thor robotics platform. In it releasethe two state that this is an agreement to speed up development times on this hardware for AI. This is something that requires long development cycles, but also a lot of money to sustain the global demand for memory due to data centers for AI. This deal goes there. “AI factories are the drivers of the next industrial revolution, and advanced memory is essential to their performance” – Jensen Huang Because it is not so much about ensuring high bandwidth memory (something that Nvidia already had to be the great whale of the sector), but to improve the infrastructure so that the new generations arrive at the pace that the development of AI requires. In fact, Chey Tae-won, CEO of SK Group, highlights the same thing: “together we are co-developing the next generation of memory for AI factories, applying AI to semiconductor design and manufacturing.” That is to say, It is not a simple question of supply (which also, since 60-70% of SK Hynix’s HBM4 memory goes to Nvidia’s Vera Rubin), but to apply AI tools (which Nvidia has) for the design and manufacturing of semiconductors with the aforementioned objective of shortening times. This objective is something that is being pursued worldwide, and the company itself SK Hynix together with Samsung collaborate in a megacenter in the United States to streamline all these processes. As a result of this agreement, it is very possible that SK Hynix get its goal of setting up a fully autonomous semiconductor factory by 2030 (something that, again, share with Samsung). Now, what about the goal of those we want a RAM stick or one Steam Deck that doesn’t hit price increases of 300 euros at once? Well, unfortunately, we are going to continue eating this situation of debauchery when it comes to building AI platforms and gigantic data centers. During his visit, Huang himself commented that he expects the global shortage to last for years because the entire supply chain of this new industry depends on these chips and that demand is very high. In their wordsit is something that “will persist for several years”. They are not new statements either, since Huang gave about seven or eight years to the unbridled investment. And more important than all this, Nvidia, right now, has the four chip giants eating from his hand. SK Hynix and Samsung with memory and their factories for new generation memory. TSMC has turned Nvidia into your client A. And ASML that is what manufactures machines to make advanced chips It is the one that supplies those tools to the three mentioned. In Xataka | China already has a GPU that competes with Nvidia’s RTX 3060. The bad thing is that it arrives five years late and worse

Europe has a shitty plan (sorry) to end the fertilizer crisis: manure

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He blockade of the Strait of Hormuz After the attacks by the US and Israel on Iran, it has had consequences that we have noticed from day one, such as the rise in fuel prices. There are others that threaten on the horizon and that are even more fearsome: according to United Nations dataApproximately a third of the world’s fertilizer trade and 20% of global LNG, an essential ingredient for manufacturing nitrogen fertilizers, pass through there. And fertilizer is providential so that food from the garden and farm reaches our table. Europe, which manufactures most of its fertilizers by burning imported natural gas, found itself overnight with skyrocketing prices and a very dark horizon. With prices 70% higher than in 2024the farmers don’t get the bills. For consumers, it seems clear that filling the shopping basket is going to be more expensive. So the European Commission has a contingency plan: the Fertilizer Action Plan. A literal shitty alternative. The central proposal from Brussels is to expand the recycling of slurry and agricultural waste to convert them into fertilizer following the program RENURE. The idea is not new: already in 2024 the Commission proposed to modify the Nitrates Directive to allow certain fertilizer materials derived from livestock manure to function as an alternative to chemical fertilizers under certain conditions. In fact, it is neither new nor sufficient. As MEP Herbert Dorfmann bluntly summarized: “manure can contribute, but it can never replace fertilizers based on urea and nitrogen.” From a technical point of view, this is an incontestable reality: synthetic fertilizers produced through the process of Haber-Bosch They have much higher available nitrogen densities than digestate or processed slurry. Why it is important. Because the Nitrogen fertilizers are the basis of modern industrial agriculture. Without them, having the supply and quantity of products that we have and at that price would be simply impossible. According to Mosaic Crop Nutrition data For agricultural production in the US, average corn yields would fall by 40% without nitrogen fertilizers. For wheat, long-term studies point to similar drops of 40%. In short, it is the pillar on which the ability to feed the planet’s population is supported. The fertilizer crisis once again puts Europe’s strategic dependence on the table, in this case on its agriculture, on fossil fuels (from third parties) and everything that its use entails: water, soil and air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and public health risks. Every time there are geopolitical tensions in a gas-producing region, Europe trembles faced with the possibility of being cold or go hungry. Context. We mentioned being cold because not too long ago Europe looked into the abyss: the start of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in 2022 brought with it an increase in the price of gas and fertilizers, which caused farmers on the old continent to reduce the use of fertilizer (and therefore, lower their yields). At that time the EU put a patch on it and now, four years later, seen in the same scenario and with the same structural problems. The current plan mentions necessary solutions such as improving nutrient management or promoting organic farming (environmental MEP Thomas Waitz also has said loud and clear that Europe is addicted to fertilizers derived from fossil fuels), but there are no concrete actions or obligations. We insist: RENURE is not something new, when the Commission proposed it a couple of years ago it already had the support of Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Romania, among others. Of course, its application was at a standstill due to regulatory issues. How do they want to do it?. The mechanism consists of modifying the EU Nitrates Directive to allow more digestate to be applied to agricultural fields, putting it on a par with mineral fertilizers. The digestate is what remains after fermenting the slurry in biogas plants: it contains nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, although in concentrations and forms of assimilation significantly lower than those of the synthetic fertilizer. In parallel, the plan mentions measures such as improving integrated nutrient management and promoting a transition towards organic agriculture, although without specific commitments or binding calendars. Yes, but. The big underlying problem is that Europe does not lack nitrogen, quite the opposite. In fact, the EU already has more nitrogen than their soils can safely absorb, which promotes the eutrophication and deterioration of rivers and lakes, in addition to ammonia emissions and contamination of drinking water. Adding more slurry to soils that are already saturated is neither a solution to shortages (and prices) nor is it good for the environment. A recent UNECE report estimates that Europe wastes between €20 billion and €60 billion in nitrogen resources each year, while the environmental and health costs of excess nitrogen pollution reach, according to the European Commission itselfbetween 70,000 and 320,000 million euros annually. The real solution is to get rid of fossil gas in the long term (and have plans similar to those with oil, with long contracts, diversification and strategic reserves) and bet on alternative technologies such as green ammonia. In this scenario, slurry can play a role in a circular economy, but it is certainly not an emergency patch. In Xataka | We are wasting a valuable resource: urine is helping solve the fertilizer crisis In Xataka | The Iran war has disrupted the global fertilizer trade. And that’s bad news for the shopping cart. Cover | Daniel Quiceno M and Markus Spiske

Samsung has made a lot of money from the memory crisis and its employees wanted their cut. Result: bonus of $340,000

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Employees at Samsung’s chip division were in high gear. And it is logical: your company is becoming gold thanks to the rise of data centers for AI. The demand for memory chips is extraordinary and that has caused Samsung’s market capitalization to skyrocket over a billion dollars. The company, yes, was being very selfish, but the threat of a strike He has made her see reason. The bonus of the crisis. Samsung Electronics workers have ratified a multimillion-dollar compensation agreement. One that will see employees of the semiconductor division receive an average bonus estimated at 513 million won (about $340,000). Agreement in extremis. The vote was approved by 74% of members of the majority union, and was closed in extremisbecause there were 90 minutes left before an indefinite strike began that threatened to paralyze this giant’s supply chains. The risk was too high. This agreement avoids a scenario that would have been catastrophic for the AI ​​industry. Samsung is the largest memory chip manufacturer in the worldand its modules power everything from mobile phones and electric vehicles to the GPUs used in AI data centers. Considering that the market is already stressed by the memory crisis and demand that far exceeds supply, adding this bottleneck would have had unforeseeable consequences. Only Saudi Aramco surpasses Samsung in estimated operating profits for 2026. Source: Bloomberg. Memory chips are pure gold. Samsung is on its way to close one of the most profitable years in its history, and its semiconductor division already indicated that its profits had multiplied by 48 in the first quarter of the year, an absolutely extraordinary figure. She is not the only one taking advantage of this phenomenon: SK Hynix and Micron They have broken the trillion-dollar market capitalization barrier for the first time. Some so much and others so little. Although the agreement has avoided a logistical disaster, it has also caused a very uncomfortable situation internally. The bonuses are linked to the financial performance of each business unit, which means that the 28,000 members of the chip division have benefited significantly, but the rest of the company has not. The differences are clear: Engineers in that division will receive bonuses of up to 600 million won ($400,000). They will share 40% of the total allocated as bonuses. Personnel in divisions such as home appliances or telephony will receive a testimonial bonus of just 6 million won ($4,000). They share 60% of the bonus, but there are many more in number, about 260,000 in total. The average salary of Samsung employees in 2025 was 158 million won (about $105,000) according to internal company information published in March. Unions divided. This asymmetry of 100 to 1 has caused great tensions to appear between departments, and this has also been noted in the negotiation and conversations in the union. While the majority bloc (which included the majority of workers in the semiconductor division) supported the agreement with more than 80% of the votes, the secondary union, which brings together employees from other divisions, rejected the document with only 21% of votes in favor. TM Roh takes action. The situation is so worrying that TM Roh, head of the device division, has sent an internal statement to try to calm things down. He has admitted that the results of the negotiation have left thousands of employees feeling “alienated, dispossessed and hurt by the company.” Top management has promised to monitor the conditions of each unit, but while Samsung has managed to control the chaos in its factories, it could have an even more disturbing problem on its hands. Image | Wikimedia Commons (Choi Kwang-mo), IntelUnsplash (Liam Briese) In Xataka | Samsung has just achieved a milestone that has not been recorded for eight years. The problem is that it is a mirage

Without state aid, China feared that electric sales would plummet. Until the Hormuz crisis arrived

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It seemed that the market was retreating but, perhaps, what it was doing was taking a breath to come back much stronger. Never before in China have plug-in and electric hybrids, known as “new energy” cars, had so much weight. Last April, a new record was broken that only confirms where the future of its industry lies. Record. 61.4% of the cars sold in China last April they were “new energy” vehicles. This is the category used by the Chinese State to talk about plug-in and electric vehicles. Its market penetration is the highest in the country’s history. The figure is almost 10% higher than last year, despite the fact that sales have fallen. This means that gasoline-powered vehicles have collapsed and that the customer is already beginning to massively accept the plug-in vehicle as the car of the future. a collapse. It is the word they use in CarNewsChina to refer to the drop in sales of internal combustion cars. And, according to data provided by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA), the sale of combustion cars has plummeted by 37% compared to the previous year and 33% compared to the month of March. Media like Jiemian They point to a clear cause of this trend: the price of oil. Last April, sales of cars with internal combustion engines were reduced by 530,000 units. The drop is undoubtedly influenced by a rise in the price of gasoline. The State has tried by all means to mitigate the impact on the consumer and the industry. In their market planning, the extra cost at the pump has been cushioned but, as they point out in Reutersgasoline and diesel are close to reaching all-time highs. Thank goodness. In Reuters They assure that China is the country that is best saving the oil crisis due to its diversified purchases but also due to the intensive use of electric cars. According to the Chinese media 36krIn 2024, China was already saving more than 400,000 barrels of oil per day thanks to its electric cars and represented a saving of 12% of its imports of this product. They explain that, although crude oil imports increased in 2025, this was due to an acceleration in the industry but electric cars helped mitigate the impact on purchases. Relief is key given the constant interruptions in regular supply of the countries near Hormuz. And it is that China has Russia as its main supplier but Saudi Arabia follows as second. A powerful track. So far this year, overall car sales in China have declined and especially “new energy” cars have been in the spotlight. Without the support of the State with purchase aidits sales have fallen by 17% but indications are that the oil crisis is helping the market rebound. In April, the drop in these cars was 6.8% while global sales fell 21.5%, both data compared to the same period of the previous year. In the first 10 days of Maysales of these cars have decreased by 13% compared to last year but have grown by 27% compared to the first 10 days of last April. Without state aid, car sales in China have fallen, underscoring the country’s historic problem in encourage family consumption. However, it does make it clear to us that the slowdown between plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles is being less than that of the rest of the technologies despite the fact that the State has stopped pushing. A backup. The movement towards electric vehicles is an endorsement of the policies of the Chinese state. With the economy managed with five-year plans, China has been building a base for more than two decades to be dominant with the Chinese electric car. He attracted knowledge by giving up landhas built a solid foundation in the supply chain and now Their brands already dominate the local marketthe largest in the world. But they have also given a lesson that is beginning to be seen outside their borders: the electric car is a good tool to alleviate the complications of the oil market. On a day-to-day basis, the savings by charging an electric car at low power are very high. If the price of gasoline rises, the savings skyrocket. Beyond China. Aware of this, China has put the turbo into its exports. BYD (which only sells plug-in vehicles) has broken a new shipment record. They are at the perfect time to enter the market with their low ranges but also offering electric cars at very competitive prices. Especially among plug-in hybrids. At the moment, most of the sales of Chinese cars in Europe are low-end cars with combustion engines. This already helps them penetrate the market, gain share and begin to be seen by new potential clients. But, also, its plug-in hybrids do not pay tariffs. This is allowing them to compete on price with Europeans and in countries like Spain, where it is considered the main purchasing value for a large part of the market, it is key. For example, a fact: so far this year, five of the 10 best-selling plug-in hybrid cars in Spain they are Chinese. Photo | INC and BYD In Xataka | An electric car is 54% cheaper to maintain than a combustion car. And it may not compensate because the data has a trick

The manufacturers promised them happy with “Ultra” phones up to the top of specs. The RAM crisis has other plans for them

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Being an Ultra is not usually the best, unless you are a mobile phone. For years, manufacturers have been throwing darts at each other, launching models designed by and to demonstrate muscle. There was a manufacturer who threw the first stone, and the rest began to follow him. Today, with the component crisis that AI is causing, are in danger. The beginning of everything. The first “Ultra” mobile phone on the market was the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. The company did a fairly marketing exercise: 108 megapixel camera, 100x zoom… everything in a big way. Was it the best Galaxy to date? Yes. Was it a strategy to set a new industry standard through an even more striking surname? Also. China wakes up. China was quick to react to Samsung’s message. Xiaomi responded with the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultraa phone that debuted 120W fast charging (absolute nonsense a few years ago), 120x zoom to surpass Samsung, and even a transparent finish to show off its hardware. It was the first Chinese mobile phone to fully enter the war: “we are going to put absolutely everything we can into a mobile phone, whether it is useful or not.” And from then on, the party began. Raised to the absurd. The war to launch increasingly powerful Ultra models is beginning to move away from its original objective. Samsung launched a first model with oversized specs, but with a certain commercial purpose. Manufacturers like Vivo launch phones like the 300Ultra They are sold directly in a kit that makes their price practically unattainable, and some of the direct rivals of Samsung and Apple surpass Western brands in price. Chinese manufacturers do not want to sell them, they want to continue demonstrating technological leadership. in check. As pointed out Ice Universethe flagship Ultra is in danger, and some of the big Chinese brands are considering pausing this product line. The Chinese Ultra is not born to sell in volume, and the Pro models or series number (Xiaomi 17simply) are those who are born to sell, even in China. The increase in costs of components such as internal memory or RAM makes launching Ultra models even more complicated, unless the manufacturer wants to raise the price to the absurd. Yes, but. Despite Ice’s predictions, it seems unlikely that the RAM crisis could completely knock down the Ultra models. Manufacturers have been betting for years on a strategy that allows them to reduce costs and continue advancing in their product line: launching exactly the same mobile year after year, but with some additional touches. This allows you to contain costs, recycle parts and reduce R&D spending, while maintaining memory configurations that cannot be reversed. Be that as it may, it seems inevitable that the RAM crisis will completely affect the mobile market, and that in 2027 we will see progress in dribs and drabs. In Xataka | The best mobile phones (2026), we have tested them and here are their analyzes

While we were looking at gasoline, the Iran crisis has skyrocketed the price of asphalt. And the roads of half the world are already suffering from it

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A few months ago we published in Xataka an article with the following title: Spanish roads have a problem in 2026: repairing a kilometer of asphalt is more expensive than ever. It was February 26, 2026. In it we analyzed the problem that Spain had encountered. Our roads, prepared for a hot and dry climate (especially in the southern half) had suffered very intense days of almost constant rain. It didn’t take long for the holes to appear and neither did the complaints in the media and social networks about the supposed poor condition of the roads. Trying to understand if this is really the case or not and why it is estimated that the State needs to invest some of 13,000 million euros to fix themwe looked to see if it had become more expensive the price of asphalt in recent years. Something that, indeed, was reflected in the aforementioned article. But this, as we said, was published on February 26. Two days later, on February 28, we woke up to the news that the Government of the United States and Israel had launched a joint bombing offensive against Iran. The rest, we already know. Crisis in oil supplya battle for open and close the Hormuz canal and fuel increases for passenger cars and airplanes. But there is something that has also risen. And that something is called asphalt. More expensive than ever (now yes) And in less than three months, which seem to have lasted a lifetime, the headline has become outdated. At the end of last month, Asefma (Spanish Association of Asphalt Mixture Manufacturers) already warned that the price of asphalt was skyrocketing. According to this association, in March alone the average price of asphalt had risen 8.2%. Nothing compared to April, when it did so by 49.3%. He overrun of the final product is due, above all, to the increase in the price of bitumen that acts as a binder for asphalt and is where the increase in the price of oil has the most impact. Asefma has come to consider that the increase in the price of asphalt was putting at risk the viability of the signed contracts or even whether they will be fulfilled or completed if the works have already begun. The truth is that, beyond the possible pressure measures of the employers’ association that defends the interests of its associates, the price of asphalt has skyrocketed inside and outside our country. To understand why asphalt has become more expensive you have to understand what makes it up. The pavement of our roads is made up of dirt and stones that are compacted. They serve as a base but also cushion the weight placed on them to delay the breaking of the asphalt. This asphalt is a bituminous mixture that uses bitumen of different intensity depending on where the road is going to be built. Those that resist heat better tend to be less flexible and those that drain better tend to be more flexible. Therefore, the latter They can melt when temperatures are very high. All components have been affected by the increase in the price of oil. To begin with, the earth and stones have to be transported by heavy vehicles with very high diesel consumption, precisely the fuel that has become most expensive. The same thing happens with the refinement of bitumen or asphalt (what we ultimately step on). If energy costs rise, the price of this product rises. But, in addition, the price of bitumen is closely linked to the price of oil. This product is made from the densest oil in the barrel, the least usable in energy terms and the most expensive to convert into fuel. This product is what is refined to obtain bitumen and, with bombs falling on Iran and the subsequent response on neighboring countries, the production and export of raw materials It has been very diminished, obviously. The American company Victory Paving figure in an increase of between 2 and 3% in the price of asphalt for every 10 dollars that a barrel of oil rises. They also argue that the shortage is greater because the rise in energy costs has an impact on a drop in the production of refineries and these usually prioritize the production of diesel and gasoline over asphalt refining because the fuels are more profitable. Richard Hudock, president of Derry Construction Co., pointed out to the American media who had never suffered a crisis so serious in the 42 years that they had been working, ensuring that the impact of the price of oil on the raw materials and fuel to be able to operate their vehicles put their job at risk this summer. In Argus They point out that the situation in Africa is no better. They point out that the bitumen that reaches countries like South Africa has become almost exclusively dependent on trade with Greece and Türkiye, once the Middle East tap has been closed. This has caused the price of each freighter to triple. If the price of asphalt has grown in the United States, South Africa and Spain, doubts have also grown about what to do in these cases. In the first of these countries It has been proposed to delay the patching of certain streets or highways. But this can cause the problem to worsen and, even if the price of oil falls again in the future, the damage will be deeper and the investment to be made would have to be larger. And the problem is that in the United States, the United Kingdom and Spain we face the same problem. The winters In all of these countries it has been very cold or very rainy, so the condition of the asphalt has been compromised. In BBC They report that the United Kingdom had already increased the budget to repair its roads but that the increase in the price of oil has put this item in check. The result, as … Read more

Spain has done well in the hantavirus crisis

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What do the WHO, the UN, the European Commission and the European Council have in common? May all of them They have publicly congratulated Spain for the management of the hantavirus crisis. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus He has described her as “the role model”. Tough to the “mission accomplished” of Minister Mónica Garcíait’s not all over yet. However, there are enough facts already accomplished to recognize that in this mess Spain has not only done what had to be done, but has also done it well. An epidemiological bomb. When the Dutch ship MV Hondius set sail from Usuaia on April 1, 2026, it did not know the chaos that was about to be generated in half the world. The figures speak for themselves: 147 people were on board (88 passengers and 59 crew members of 23 different nationalities) and, as the days went by, the outbreak generated three deaths, (at least) 10 confirmed cases and 125 people evacuated thanks to an international operation coordinated from the Tenerife port of Granadilla. That’s where Spain comes in. An ethical success. Does it make sense for us to talk about ‘technical success’ in a context in which everything (absolutely everything) tends towards almost instantaneous politicization? Well, there are three things that allow us to see it like this: The international contrast: we must not forget that Spain assumed leadership of the operation after Cape Verde recognized that it did not have the capacity to carry out the evacuation nor that the Radboudumc university hospital in the Netherlands has had to quarantine 12 health workers for two consecutive biosafety failures. In contrast, Spain has executed the operation perfectly and, as far as we know, everything has gone according to plans and protocols. The social climate. Despite the initial refusal of the Government of the Canary Islands, Clavijo’s unscientific vaudeville and localized (and reasonable) protests by some unions, the operation was finally imposed through International Maritime Law (obligation to provide relief) after the formal request of the WHO. The relative complexity. It is not a minor issue, because organizing 10 special medical flights, coordinating biosafety protocols with 19 different countries and articulating a landing of these characteristics in rough sea conditions is complex. Above all, because everyone was watching and any failure had the potential to become a media circus. Is it all good news? Of course not. Whether we buy the terminology or not, the Canary Islands are right to complain that the Spanish Government has approached the matter with certain ‘colonial’ touches. Although finally, faced with the unfeasible demands of the Cabildo and the Autonomous Government, it was cut short; The truth is that the country’s institutional architecture requires a more respectful approach to competencies (or, failing that, designing a clear exception protocol for public health emergencies). What’s left to do? A lot. After all, there are many days of active surveillance left. The 45 days of incubation of the virus make epidemiological tracking very complex and the positives that have occurred after the evacuation only confirm this point. And beyond all that, a deeper debate remains pending on zoonotic exposure in scientific and tourist trips in endemic areas. We have turned the world into an amusement park and we are not aware of the risks. A few days ago we were talking about how the unlikely combination of an African bird, an American plant and an Asian plant had created a new habitat on the peninsula that was putting Valencian citrus trees in trouble. These “coincidences” occur in thousands every day and are, by their very nature, unpredictable. That is the world we face. For that reason, it is good news that everything has worked reasonably well. Image | Ministry of Health In Xataka | The hantavirus was going to reach Europe sooner or later and, as always, it caught us offside

The RAM memory crisis is complicating the task of upgrading a PC, but there are alternatives if you don’t want to spend a fortune

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Straight to the point: if you want to upgrade or build a PC right now, you’re going to have to dig deep into your pocket. The price of RAM it’s shot right nowsomething that It is already being extended to storage as well.. But what if you have no choice and need to upgrade your PC or a new one in parts? Assuming that RAM is going to cost you more than it did a year ago, There are alternatives to spend less money. There are certain aspects to take into account that we will talk about a little further down, but in order not to spend a small fortune, the most economical option is to get some 32GB DDR4 RAM like these from Corsair: we have them available for 199.99 euros. CORSAIR VENGEANCE LPX DDR4 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) 3200MHz CL16-20-20-38 1.35V Intel AMD Desktop Computer Memory – Black (CMK32GX4M2E3200C16) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links An especially interesting option if your PC is already a few years old Let’s go in parts. The first thing to take into account is the price, obviously. The price history of this article tells us that these RAM memory modules They have been between 50 and 60 euros before the month of August last 2025. Obviously, if we compare those prices with what it costs now, it is obvious that the same product costs much more. But of course, it must be seen from the perspective of the current price crisis suffered by these components. It’s not all bad news. These same modules They cost more than 280 euros in February of this yearan absurdly high price. So are they worth buying right now? The situation with the RAM does not seem to be getting better in the short term, but it is 32 GB of DDR4 RAM, which means that you have to take some things into account before buying them. If you already have a PC at home and it is already a few years old, then DDR4 RAM is a very interesting option. It is much cheaper than DDR5 which, despite offering more performancehas an even more skyrocketing price. In addition, this DDR4 memory offers more than enough performance for simple tasks such as office automation, Internet browsing or even undemanding games. DDR5 RAM prices are still high, but not as high as a few months ago Now, imagine that you want to build a PC and you want the most current so that it lasts longer. Here the ideal would be to go for DDR5 RAM, but the problem is, as you can imagine, the price. Among everything that there is right now, we also have from Corsair these two 32 GB modules per 399.99 euros. Yes, they have a very high price (more so if we take into account that they cost around 120 euros last year), but they have reached over 500 euros. CORSAIR Vengeance DDR5 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) up to 6000MHz CL36 Intel XMP 3.0 Desktop Computer Memory – Black (CMK32GX5M2B6000C36) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Keep in mind that your motherboard and processor must be compatible with this memory, so if your PC is a few years old, you will also have to update these components. Now, in return, we will have a longer PC and that will also allow us to upgrade to other components in the future without spending too much. Other Corsair RAM memories that may interest you CORSAIR Vengeance DDR5 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) 6000MHz CL36-44-44-96 1.35V AMD Expo & Intel XMP Desktop Computer Memory – White (CMK32GX5M2E6000Z36W) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links CORSAIR VENGEANCE RGB PRO DDR4 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) 3200MHz CL16-20-20-38 1.35V Intel AMD Desktop Computer Memory – Black (CMW16GX4M2C3200C16) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links CORSAIR Vengeance DDR5 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) up to 6000MHz CL30 AMD Expo Intel XMP 3.0 Desktop Computer Memory – Gray (CMK32GX5M2B6000Z30) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | corsair In Xataka | DDR4 or DDR5? What RAM to choose so as not to pay even more than necessary in the middle of the price crisis In Xataka | Buy and assemble your PC in parts: guide to choosing processor, SSD, RAM and graphics card

The chip crisis is leaving no stone unturned. Motherboards seemed untouchable, but their time has come

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The RAM memory crisis is no longer a RAM memory crisis. Emulating what happened at the end of 2020, we are immersed in a new component crisis that, unlike that of five years ago, has not been caused by a combination of factors but by something very specific, the AI ​​industry. It is very difficult to buy any component with a NAND chip at a fair price and it is something that It is affecting all devices. The PC was already affected, but now the four largest motherboard manufacturers predict the worst. A shipment contraction of almost 30% on motherboards. Focused away from consumption. To understand why the crisis is impacting motherboards when, a priori, they could continue to be produced at the normal price, you have to look a little further. Nvidia and AMD are fully focused on the artificial intelligence segment, pausing their consumer GPU renewal plans for 2060. For example, the RTX 50 Super series neither is nor expected for this year and already speaks of some RTX 60 that would be released by 2028. Intel, for its part, also recently confirmed that consumer processors were taking a back seat in its priorities, since They were going to focus on the Xeon for servers and data centers. It is a strategy aligned with the great objective: become the great American foundry and sneak into the conversation they dominate TSMC and, at a good distance, Samsung. Update paused. With three manufacturers of the three key components having the focus away from the user and with the three main memory manufacturers (Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix) focused on memory for AI, what had to happen is happening: not only is buying new parts for a PC very expensive, but sometimes there is no stock, and the enthusiastic user who renews a PC every generation has no reason to do so, even if he had the deepest pockets in the world. That is why they are putting these PC updates on hold, clinging to current devices that they will have to get more out of because the market, directly, is broken. motherboards. And if PCs cannot be built and the companies that build computers themselves have already reported that they are having problems due to the price of RAM and storage, the foundation of the computer stops making sense. That’s where motherboards come in as those ‘foundations’. As we read in Tom’s Hardwarethe four main ones in the market (Taiwanese, too) are shipping units well below expectations. According to the media, ASRock will ship 37% fewer boards, Asus 33% less, MSI 24% less and Gigabyte 22% less. In total, the big four in this segment will ship 28% fewer units than they moved last year, which will push prices up for components that had not yet suffered the blow. In fact, the fact that the four companies are reviewing its shipping and sales predictions for this period could cause a parallel crisis. In a hypothetical scenario (because at the rate we are going it is very difficult for the crisis to be resolved in two days), if tomorrow it is possible to buy RAM and SSD memory at their normal price and people start building PCs again, what would be missing would be motherboards, so the shortage would cause price spikes. No end in sight. But hey, I already say that it is a hypothetical scenario because everything indicates that the NAND chip crisis is not even close to being resolved in the short term. The hyperscalers have the vast majority of the team unemployed full time, but they continue to demand new platforms to continue developing AI. That is why the entire segment has turned its head to look only at a market that is guaranteeing them an unprecedented peak in income. And no, don’t think that Asus, MSI, ASRock or Gigabyte are having a hard time, since they point that manufacturers are also offsetting declining profits in the user segment with growth in data center platforms. In the end, although ‘rare’, they are computers that need motherboards. When will the storm pass? Namely. There are sources that point to 2027 to start seeing green shoots, but others go to 2030 and Nvidia, which in the end has some hand in this mess, considers that there are seven or eight years of wild investment left. Image | Sitraka, Luis Gonzalez In Xataka | There is a shortage of RAM because of AI. That will make your next console much more expensive.

the RAM crisis

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nintendo switch 2 is celebrating. Not because it has been on the market for almost a year (it will be on June 5 and must be near of the 20 million machines sold, an absolute outrage), but because Nintendo has just announced what has been expected for a few months. Nintendo Switch 2 will increase in price in all markets, being another example of an unusual situation in the world of console hardware. Because this generation is the first in which a console is cheaper at launch than after years of being on the market. In short. Through a publication On its website, the Japanese company has detailed how the new prices of Nintendo Switch 2 look. In the United States and Canada, prices without taxes will rise from 449.99 US dollars and 629.99 Canadian dollars to 499.99 and 679.99 dollars respectively. In Europe, where taxes are included, the recommended retail price will increase from 469.99 euros to 499.99 euros. That is, the price of the console alone is almost the same as the launch price plus ‘Mario Kart World’. In Japan, the prices of both the Nintendo Switch 2 Japanese Edition (which was cheaper than the Western one due to protectionist policies) and the Nintendo Switch OLED, Nintendo Switch and Switch Lite also increased. In Japan the measure will become effective on May 25, while in the rest of the world it will apply from September 1. Please understand. It pains me to refer to the famous phrase of an industry genius like Satoru Iwata (who was the beloved president of Nintendo), but in the press release, the Japanese company commented that they apologize for the impact of the price revision, but that they deeply appreciate our understanding. The problem is that, here, Nintendo is not entirely to blame. The company points to the “impact of several changes in market conditions that will extend in the medium and long term,” and that only means one thing: the blow of the component crisis reaches Nintendo. Since all NAND chip manufacturers are focused on creating chips for AI, there are no components left for the consumer market. It is difficult for a user to access an SSD, an HDD or a RAM stick, but for device manufacturers the costs also increase. We are seeing it in mobile phones, computers and even in an Apple that confessed that they had been able to avoid the first wave of the crisis, but that they can no longer continue to cushion the blow. In fact, several Apple options are disappearing from its store… and then we have Valve unable to launch its Steam Machine due to this crisis. what a generation…The price increase for Nintendo Switch 2 does not occur in a vacuum. PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series were launched at the end of 2020 (in a nascent semiconductor crisis, too) and have since revised their price upwards on several occasions. Both reached 500 euros, but if now you want a PS5 You must pay 649.99 euros. And if you want the PS5 Pro, about 899.99 euros. The same thing has been happening with Xboxbut in the end it is something that makes less noise because Microsoft’s situation this generation of consoles is… complicated. We’ll see how things go with their new machine, a Project Helix whose CEO has just pointed out that it will be conditioned by the current market situation. It’s not going to be cheap, wow. Anomaly. Gone are the times when, by pure logic, consoles improved with the passing of the generation while they became cheaper. At first, the hardware is expensive and it costs companies more to manufacture it, but over the years these components become cheaper and improve in efficiency. Manufacturers were creating smaller consoles, with better features in some cases and, above all, more accessible. The current generation breaks with that logic because we are chaining component crises with market crises and, currently, both at the same time. That’s why it was logical to expect the price increase for Nintendo Switch 2: it was just a matter of time. The “good” news is that it seems that Nintendo will not give the order to retailers to increase the recommended price until September. The bad news is that the stock may not arrive until that date. By the way, in Japan they are also raising the price of Nintendo Switch Online… and there is no RAM crisis to justify it. In Xataka | In Xataka | The price of RAM has skyrocketed and the best example to see the debacle is a 100 euro PC: the Raspberry Pi

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