Marketplace Tech Digital archiving and the global memory shortage
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Mar 3, 2026 Linda Tadic, digital archivist and founder of Digital Bedrock, preserves archives for museums, libraries, and media studios. She discusses the global memory chip shortage and its impact on archival work. She talks about stockpiling drives, risks of hyperscalers controlling storage, and the limits of relying on the cloud for long-term preservation.
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AI Data Centers Are Causing A Global Memory Shortage
- Data center demand for AI models is driving an unprecedented memory chip shortage.
- IDC links hyperscaler consumption to higher memory chip prices affecting phones, PCs, and external drives.
Archivist Stocked Hard Drives As Prices Rose
- Linda Tadic bought up whatever hard drives she could find to provision her servers.
- She described the marketplace tilting toward hyperscalers who will end up controlling storage and processing for others.
Hyperscalers Will Gain Control Over Long Term Storage
- The shortage shifts market power toward hyperscalers who can secure capacity and set terms.
- Linda warns this creates reliance on hyperscalers that then 'control the means to store the data.'