Acer CEO Pushes Back on RAM Shortage

The RAM shortage has become the hardware industry's favorite anxiety, but one of the PC market's most senior executives is declining to join the panic. Acer chief executive Jason Chen has pushed back on the prevailing pessimism, arguing that DDR4 and DDR5 memory supply is still ample and that the current crunch cannot possibly run to the end of the decade. His comments, first reported in Taiwan's Economic Daily News and highlighted by VideoCardz, landed in a market already bracing for higher prices on nearly every component.

Chen's position cuts against a broad chorus of analysts and industry figures who have warned that the memory squeeze could stretch on for years. His argument, as reported, rests on two pillars: that the shortage is milder than commonly portrayed, and that a wave of new chip production will correct the imbalance well before 2030.

Chen Says Supply Is Quite Large

According to the translated report, Chen told the Economic Daily News that there is not much of a DDR4 or DDR5 memory shortage at present. He described the supply of that RAM as "quite large", a striking characterization given how sharply memory prices have climbed over the past year. The same optimism extends to processors: Chen indicated there is not much shortage of CPUs either.

That framing puts the Acer chief at odds with nearly every other voice in the market. The report notes that almost everyone else disagrees with the suggestion that the RAM shortage is not currently severe, and the translation itself may have softened some of Chen's meaning.

Chen does not deny that component pricing is under strain. He acknowledged that prices are currently "fluctuating" at a high level, a phrase that concedes the market is unstable even as he rejects the idea of outright scarcity.

The Shortage Cannot Reach 2030

Where Chen is most emphatic is on the timeline. He stated flatly that the memory shortage will not extend for the rest of the decade, issuing a direct challenge to forecasters who have sketched out a much longer crisis.

"It's impossible for the shortage to last until 2030!"

— Jason Chen, chief executive of Acer

That remark appears aimed squarely at the analysts and prominent industry figures who have suggested the RAM crisis could indeed persist until 2030. Chen's reasoning is that more chip production is coming online, particularly in China, which he expects to ease the supply constraints that have driven prices upward.

The report cautions, however, that Chen appears to be speaking more about the Chinese market than the global picture. That distinction matters: conditions in China's domestic supply chain may not reflect what buyers in North America or Europe will experience.

PC Prices Still Climbing This Year

Even under Chen's rosier scenario, consumers are not off the hook in the near term. He acknowledged that PC prices will continue to climb in the fourth quarter of 2026, with an average increase of between 5% to 20%.

That is a wide band, and it leaves room for significant variation across product categories. Memory-heavy machines, particularly those configured with large amounts of RAM, would sit at the painful end of that range under the Acer chief's own framing.

The relief Chen predicts is not immediate. He forecasts that PC prices should drop from mid-2027, which means the better part of a year of elevated pricing lies ahead before any meaningful improvement materializes.

Where the Optimism Meets Reality

The gap between Chen's account and the wider market consensus is difficult to ignore. Memory prices have been soaring, and the report notes they were already extraordinarily high before the latest run-up. GPUs have also been hit by worrying price hikes, with top-end cards described as getting ridiculous.

Against that backdrop, Chen's claim that supply is "quite large" reads as a notable outlier. The report itself flags that the translation may have altered his meaning, and suggests his gist could be that supply is not as dire as some in the industry would have people believe. That is a softer claim than outright denial of a shortage, and it is worth reading his comments with that caveat in mind.

There is also the question of who Chen is addressing. He appears to be commenting primarily on the Chinese market, where new production capacity is coming online, rather than on global conditions. Acer is a major PC vendor with visibility into component supply chains, but a regional read does not necessarily translate into a worldwide forecast.

What Everyone Agrees On

For all the disagreement about severity and duration, there is one point that the report describes as universally accepted: prices are going to rise over the rest of 2026 and into 2027.

Even Chen's own projection does not have pricing falling until the middle of next year. That means the near-term outlook is settled regardless of which camp turns out to be right about the long term. Buyers planning purchases in the coming months should expect to pay more, not less.

• 5% to 20% — the average PC price rise Chen expects in Q4 2026
• Mid-2027 — when Chen predicts PC prices will begin to fall
• 2030 — the year Chen says is impossible for the shortage to reach

The report frames the disagreement as one of degree rather than direction. Analysts and industry figures who expect the crisis to run to 2030 are the audience for Chen's most pointed remark, while his more measured statements about supply suggest he sees the situation as less severe than the headlines imply.

A Question of How Much Worse

The report's own assessment is blunt about the consumer experience: it is not pretty out there, and nothing is going to get better for some time. The open question, as the report puts it, is how much worse things might become.

That uncertainty is what makes Chen's comments notable. If his read is correct, the market may be approaching a plateau rather than a cliff, with high prices stabilizing before they begin to recede. If the gloomier forecasts hold, the current pain is a prelude rather than a peak.

The report expresses hope that Chen's more positive signals indicate at least some stabilizing around high pricing for PCs and components alike. That is a modest aspiration, not a prediction of falling prices, and it reflects how thoroughly the shortage has reshaped expectations across the industry.

What It Means for Buyers and Vendors

For anyone planning a PC purchase, the practical takeaway from Chen's remarks is narrow but useful. The near term is expensive no matter which forecast you trust, and the earliest projected relief is mid-2027. Waiting for prices to fall means waiting at least that long under the most optimistic scenario on the table.

For vendors, the disagreement between Acer's chief executive and the broader analyst community is a planning problem. Component costs that fluctuate at high levels make it difficult to set pricing, manage margins, and commit to product roadmaps. If more production capacity does come online in China as Chen expects, the supply picture could shift faster than the gloomier forecasts assume, but that remains a projection rather than an established fact.

The clearest conclusion supported by the report is that the market is split, and neither side has been vindicated yet. Chen's timeline is specific enough to be tested: if PC prices are falling by mid-2027 and memory supply has eased, his read will have been the accurate one. Until then, buyers should plan around elevated prices continuing through 2026 and into 2027, because that is the one point on which every voice in the discussion agrees.