The RAM crisis will see smartphone specs go backwards in 2026, experts warn – here's why

• With RAM in high demand for AI data centres, prices for it are rising
• As a result, smartphone makers may choose to equip their upcoming phones with less RAM than originally planned
• In some cases, that might mean they have less RAM than we're used to

We’ve been hearing a lot about how rising RAM prices could lead to higher costs for upcoming smartphones, but this unwelcome increase is now looking like it might also – or alternatively – lead to weaker smartphone specs.

According to a TrendForce report, it’s likely that high-end smartphones will slow their transition to 16GB of RAM. That essentially means, for models that have 12GB currently, like the iPhone 17 Pro Max and Samsung Galaxy S25, we’ll likely see their successors also have 12GB of RAM, rather than getting an increase.

But for lower-end models, the specs might actually decrease, with mid-range phones apparently likely to no longer come in 12GB configurations, instead topping out at 8GB. Low-end models could also be restricted to 4GB, where currently some have 6GB or 8GB of RAM.

A RAM decrease for high-end phones too

But according to leaker Lanzuk, the situation could be even worse, with them claiming that, as well as the adjustments to mid-range and low-end phones above, high-end models that currently ship with 16GB of RAM would likely drop back down to 12GB for their successors in most cases.

That could affect things like the OnePlus 16 and the Google Pixel 11 Pro, as the current top models from those brands have 16GB of RAM.

This is all potentially happening because right now there’s massive demand for RAM in AI data centres, pushing prices up. Ironically, though, this could actually hurt the performance and development of AI on phones, since smartphones also depend on a lot of RAM to handle AI tasks.

Still, while these reports seem believable, for now they’re just predictions, so it remains to be seen whether they’ll come true. But we’d be very surprised if either prices weren’t increased or RAM amounts weren’t decreased, so right now we mostly just hope only one of those things happens, rather than us having to pay more for inferior hardware.

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