Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu has said that a sharp surge in memory prices, combined with rising AI token costs, has made running a business increasingly difficult, even as the company continues to hold off on raising its own prices.
Vembu flags memory and AI token cost pressure
In a posts on X, Vembu cited a report noting that memory prices are up 500 percent in 12 months and now stand at 10 times their lowest-ever level. "Memory prices, along with AI token prices have made business very difficult. We have held back from raising prices but it is becoming hard," he wrote.
Steep rise in DDR5 memory costs
According to a report by Tom's Hardware, average prices for DDR5 memory rose sharply between August 2025 and August 2026, climbing from $90 (roughly Rs 8,600) to $425 (roughly Rs 40,000) for certain kits. Higher-capacity kits have seen even steeper increases, with a 128GB DDR5-6400 kit now priced at $3,399 (roughly Rs 3,25,000), up from its lowest-ever tracked price of $329 (roughly Rs 31,490).
The price surge has been driven largely by rising demand for memory chips from AI data centres.
Vembu calls for a shift in how programming languages are designed
Vembu also argued that the memory crisis signals a broader shift in software design. "A technical note: for a long time, programming languages were designed with the assumption that memory is 'free.' That era has now ended," he wrote.
He said the industry now needs "highly memory efficient languages and smarter compilers, even for AI to use," and said he intends to focus on making programming languages more memory-efficient going forward. "Safety of code and productivity in writing code cannot come at the expense of memory bloat. That is my area of research," Vembu said.
Wider industry facing similar pressure
Vembu's comments come as rising component costs weigh on the broader tech industry. Smartphone makers including Oppo, OnePlus, Vivo and Nothing have raised device prices in recent months, and Apple is rumoured to be considering an iPhone price hike as well.
Meanwhile, AI companies continue to expand data centre capacity globally. OpenAI has signed a deal with SoftBank's SB Energy for a 10-gigawatt data centre in Ohio, backed in part by a commitment from Nvidia. In India, HCLTech has announced a Rs 3,500 crore investment in AI data centres, while TCS plans to spend up to $7 billion on a 1-gigawatt data centre facility.
