BlockBeats — September 7, 2026. TrendForce put out its newest memory industry research, and the headline is blunt: total DRAM industry revenue hit about $154.73 billion in the second quarter of 2026, up 59.5% from the prior quarter. The main reason was a sharp jump in conventional DRAM contract prices.
Demand: LLM Training and Agentic AI Fuel Growth
On the demand side, TrendForce said ongoing LLM model training and AI inference are still pushing AI server demand higher. That, in turn, is lifting shipments of HBM3e, LPDDR5X, and high-capacity RDIMM. And Agentic AI applications have widened procurement across different RDIMM capacity specifications, which means the demand base is getting more diverse.
Supply: Low Inventories, Server Prioritization Limit Bit Shipments
On the supply side, DRAM makers are still sitting on low inventories, while new capacity is being directed first toward the server market. So overall DRAM bit shipments only saw a limited sequential increase in Q2. TrendForce said supply growth is still trailing the demand increase coming from AI and other applications. Short version: the supply-demand mismatch may stick around in the near to medium term, giving prices more support.