Nvidia (NVDA) Hikes AI Server Prices 15% on Memory Costs

Nvidia told some of its largest customers that the price of servers containing its AI chips will rise by more than 15% in many cases, Bloomberg reported. Soaring memory costs drive the increase. The higher prices apply to systems shipping in early 2027, including those built on Nvidia's Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin platforms. The size of each hike depends on the chip generation and memory configuration.

Contract manufacturers assembling servers for data-center operators such as Microsoft, Google and Oracle have notified their customers of the coming increases, according to the report. Reuters, which summarized the Bloomberg story, said it could not immediately verify the details. The hikes described apply to new systems shipping early next year, not orders already under contract. Nvidia has not commented publicly.

The cause is a historic shortage in memory chips. High-bandwidth memory and server DRAM are essential to AI accelerators, and their prices have climbed at record rates. The three big memory makers – Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron – have shifted capacity toward the high-margin AI parts. Conventional DRAM contract prices rose an estimated 90% to 95% quarter over quarter in the first three months of 2026, with a further 58% to 63% projected in the second quarter, according to TrendForce data reported by Tom's Hardware.

Memory now accounts for roughly a quarter of the bill of materials for a high-end AI server rack, per Deloitte estimates. That is why a memory spike forces a server price hike rather than getting absorbed. The shortage is not resolving quickly. Analysts at Gartner expect the crunch to persist at least through the first half of 2027.

For Nvidia, passing the cost through is a show of pricing power. The company has a more than 70% share of the data-center AI chip market and gross margins near 75%. That gives it room to raise prices without obviously losing customers that have few alternatives. Higher server prices also raise the cost of the AI buildout for the hyperscalers doing the buying. If memory inflation keeps climbing, the question becomes whether Nvidia can keep passing it through without denting demand or its own margins.

Nvidia reports second-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Wednesday, August 26. Wall Street expects revenue to roughly double from a year earlier. The price-hike news frames the key question for that report: whether rising memory costs are starting to pressure the margins that have defined Nvidia's run, or whether its pricing power is strong enough to pass the bill straight through.

The stock eased to about $215 on the week, down roughly 5%. Nvidia's Alpha Score is 68 out of 100, a Moderate label, with the stock at $214.72, down 0.98% on the session. The central question for Wednesday is gross-margin guidance, not the revenue beat the Street already expects.