South Africa’s RAM disaster

Research by MyGaming has found that RAM prices in South Africa have continued to skyrocket over the past five months – in some cases more than doubling over the period.

These increases – which started back in 2025 – are being caused by the massive amount of computing power required for AI infrastructure, which has increased demand for memory and other important hardware across the globe.

Global technology hyperscalers like Google, Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI are all investing heavily into AI infrastructure to be the first to achieve important AI breakthroughs – such as AGI.

This has had a knock-on effect on the everyday consumer – such as the gamer who wants to kit out their system with more high-performance RAM, or the professional who wants to upgrade their business laptop.

Speaking to Aki Anastasiou on What’s Next in February, Craig Nowitz – CEO of South African tech distributor Syntech – said tech price spikes are showing no sign of slowing down.

“The issues are getting worse,” said Nowitz.

“Pricing this side of the year [From 1 January until 10 February] is probably up another 50%, and it is getting tough out there.”

There is no obvious short-term solution, either. Building a new facility to produce the silicon wafers used in RAM will require, according to Nowitz, “$5-10 billion and a good 3-5 years.”

Comparing RAM prices in South Africa

The global RAM shortage is a growing concern – and South Africans have not been shielded from these issues.

MyGaming decided to measure how much RAM prices have increased in recent months.

To do this, we chose one of South Africa’s most popular online PC hardware stores.

We then compared the prices on their RAM listings from the end of 2025, to pricing for the identical products as of 30 April 2026.

Most RAM products were found to have increased in price by 60-90% – with one product more than doubling in price.

This data is detailed below.