Ever since June 2025, and especially after last September, RAM prices have soared and reached levels no one could have anticipated. Following the GPU crisis of 2020, as well as subsequent supply line issues caused by COVID, we thought we were in the clear, but then a new technology decided it wanted all the resources for itself.But now, the tide might be turning as AI-obsessed memory producers have been experiencing stock dumps that have already started to affect RAM prices positively. Following OpenAI's woes with securing funding for some of its projects after Disney backed out of funding Sora, which was then shuttered (thanks Yahoo Finance), concern grew over whether the company would even need, or have the means to, secure as much memory stock as it previously ate up.Sam Altman's venture has been the driving force behind AI development and was the biggest customer for undiced wafers, but is now losing ground to competitors like Anthropic, potentially impacting its needs for more memory. On top of that, Google has been making tremendous developments in AI efficiency, promising to cut memory cost while improving performance, potentially allowing manufacturers to leave some RAM on the table for the consumer market.Hardware Canucks reports that Altman allegedly didn't "buy" the wafers but was actually sending Letters of Intent, and since OpenAI seems to no longer want to go through with these purchases, the memory market immediately felt it.RAM remains obscenely expensive, but the trend could be on its way down. Screenshot by DestructoidAnd amid these developments, RAM manufacturers like Micron were immediately hit with stock dumps, impacting their share prices and driving RAM prices down in certain markets. According to Videocardz (via TrendForce), DDR5 RAM kits in Germany have lost value for the first time in eight months, while the United States has seen a 20 percent decline in certain cases. In China, RAM prices dropped by around $14 in a day, signaling the start of a long-awaited trend. Micron's stock recovered a bit today, but it's now at the same level it was around the start of the year, having lost 18 percent of its value in the last 24 hours. SK Hynix, another major manufacturer that leaned heavily into AI prospects, lost 20 percent of its stock value in the last five days following initial concerns over OpenAI's ability to secure future funding.Even Samsung Electronics, though not primarily a RAM producer, lost 13 percent of its value in the same time frame. Micron notably shuttered its consumer-grade brand Crucial in favor of pursuing corporate customers, and that seems to have backfired a bit, though things could just as easily turn around in the long run. The trend, which saw RAM prices more than quadruple, could be slowly stopping. If the above is to continue, then we're surely going to see a decrease in RAM costs (and anything memory-related drop in price, such as SSDs and other technologies) and perhaps finally get our hands on the Steam Machine, itself delayed almost indefinitely as the memory crisis persists. Furthermore, the PlayStation 6 and the new Xbox could maintain their affordable, mid-range prices if memory goes back to being somewhat normal by the time they're ready to be shipped and launched. However, another problem now looms over the gaming industry, that of oil prices, primarily driven by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.Price hikes in dollars per barrel have already produced adverse effects in gaming, such as Sony's decision to make every version of the PlayStation 5 substantially more expensive. Though some speculated that it could be because of RAM, obscenely expensive oil and shipping costs were the next most probable cause.Either way, I hope RAM doesn't get as impacted by supply chain and shipping issues, but it isn't out of the question. We're finally seeing a downward trend, and all we can do now is hope for the best, as AI companies scramble to find more infinite money that they do not have from companies that don't have it either. The post AI funding uncertainties are shaking up memory producers. Will we finally be able to afford RAM again? appeared first on Destructoid.