‘You have to work around the supply chain,’ Acer exec on plans to bypass the ‘big three’ and save us from the RAM price crisis

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‘History repeats itself,’ so it’s time to do things differently

Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI
(Image credit: Future)

As the year of the laptop and PC gaming continues, there’s a concerning backdrop to everything I see — caused by the RAM price crisis we’re going through right now.

But signs of optimism are showing, as Acer has shared its plan with Tom’s Guide to bypass it entirely for consumer PCs and laptops.

Speaking to Acer’s EMEA Marketing Director, Manuel Linning, he acknowledged that the company is “looking at multiple smaller vendors” of RAM chips to bypass the big three providers who are seemingly going all-in on AI data center memory.

Who are the big three, and what are they up to?

RAM

(Image credit: Future)

Three companies control 95% of the global DRAM production: Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology.

And now, in the midst of the AI data center boom, these companies are prioritizing memory for these servers, which has caused a significant price hike for standard consumer RAM.

On top of that, it’s creating a bidding war for anyone wanting to work with them — consumer tech companies vs AI companies who have the cash to burn to buy at higher profit margins.

It’s why you’ve seen the likes of Micron kill their consumer memory business and follow the money. In laptops specifically, the price increase is not necessarily being felt across the board, as Intel told me that laptop makers are sitting on “about 9 to 12 months” of stock.

What is Acer’s fix?

Four RAM stacks

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

“Since this is an industry issue, we're all dealing with it in some different ways,” Linning commented. “What we're doing is we're looking at multiple smaller vendors, and also new vendors.”

Those final few words piqued my curiosity, so I dug a little deeper with him. I’d heard about this plan to bypass the global bidding war for big three components and ask Chinese companies to source memory. Work with more companies that are looking to fill the hole left by the oligopoly of Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron.

“We're looking at not just the three known ones, but we're also looking at multiple smaller ones,” Linning added. “It would also be an opportunity for them, as there are some vendors which might have not been in that business, but can easily switch.”

Of course, this comes with the big condition that supplier lists are always kept confidential by companies. That being said, there are reports pointing to two that Acer, alongside Asus, Dell and HP are considering working with.

So let's go a bit inside baseball and meet the Chinese memory producers who could help us out of this pickle:

  • CXMT (ChangXin Memory Technologies): As the big three move towards high-margin memory for AI data centers, CXMT has spotted an opportunity and aggressively ramped up DDR5 production. There are reports that Acer could be working with CXMT — with companies viewing them as a potential “savior” for consumer electronics.
  • YMTC (Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp): YMTC may be on a US trade blacklist, but the scale of its production is too significant to ignore. Chinese smartphone makers like Huawei, Xiaomi and Oppo are already working with them, alongside Lenovo.

Sources tell UNN that HP has begun testing from CXMT, ahead of potentially purchasing from them if the supply situation remains bad by mid-2026. On top of that, Dell is also testing, with all signs pointing towards Acer doing the same thing.

"As long as Chinese suppliers start using their new capacities, it will help improve the memory shortage situation," Jason Chen, chairman of Acer, told reporters.

Maintaining supply resilience

A single RAM stick

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

As Emanuel noted, gamers are becoming sensitive to these “AI-inflated prices,” which makes the value proposition of mid-range and budget systems like the Nitro line next-to impossible to maintain.

By Acer and all these other companies using alternative vendors, making the most of their supply and growing these companies separate from the AI gold rush, there’s a chance here that consumer RAM prices may not be hit.

And in a world of skyrocketing DDR5 and GPU costs, I’ll take any chance I can get!

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Jason England
Jason England
Managing Editor — Computing

Jason brings a decade of tech and gaming journalism experience to his role as a Managing Editor of Computing at Tom's Guide. He has previously written for Laptop Mag, Tom's Hardware, Kotaku, Stuff and BBC Science Focus. In his spare time, you'll find Jason looking for good dogs to pet or thinking about eating pizza if he isn't already.

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