The live ledger of AI-chip economics

A semiconductor forecast is almost never read as what it is: one point on a path that the forecaster is still walking. Across 44 revision chains spanning 2018 to 2026, three patterns hold. Forecasters move as a bloc within a target year — every one of the six CY2023 chains was revised down, and all eight CY2024 chains were revised up. Revisions converge as the target approaches, with the median step shrinking from 8.2% to 3.5%. And the record always stops before the year does: the median final print lands 64 days before the target year closes, and not one of the 44 chains contains a print published after the period ended. The number that becomes "what they forecast" is therefore always a number published while the answer was still unknown, and no forecaster returns to mark it. The archive's widest move shows the stakes: WSTS raised its own 2026 market forecast from $760.7 billion to $1.51 trillion in twelve months, with memory alone accounting for about 79% of the revision.

DRAM spot prices for both DDR4 and DDR5 have entered a sharp acceleration phase, with server DRAM contract prices rising 45–50% in Q4 2025 and TrendForce projecting a further 55–60% quarter-on-quarter gain in Q1 2026. A rare inversion—where chip spot quotes have exceeded module quotes—is flashing one of the clearest early-cycle signals in years. With AI-driven HBM demand cannibalizing standard DRAM capacity and no meaningful supply relief expected before 2027, the spot market is pricing in a sustained upcycle, not a transient squeeze.