AI has started buying up scarce RAM: Bots check store pages every 6.5 seconds

DDR5 memory has remained in short supply for several months, with prices rising faster than inventories can be replenished. It has now become clear that the shortage is driven not only by demand from miners and gamers, but also by artificial intelligence. Research firm Galileo has detected massive bot attacks on online retail websites, with AI-generated traffic exceeding real user activity by a factor of six.

What Is Happening

In one monitored campaign, more than 10 million bot requests were blocked. Within a single hour, automated systems sent around 50,000 requests to 91 different DDR5 product pages. Each page was checked an average of 551 times per hour — meaning a new request arrived roughly every 6.5 seconds. Monitoring runs almost around the clock, with only minimal technical pauses.

The bots are not targeting only consumer-grade modules with heatsinks and RGB lighting. They are also tracking industrial memory and even individual components for motherboard manufacturers, including DIMM connectors.

Why AI Is Aggressively Buying Memory

Galileo’s experts link the activity to the boom in local AI models. Companies and enthusiasts are increasingly building their own servers and workstations to run large language models locally, without relying on cloud services. This requires enormous amounts of RAM — often 128 GB, 256 GB, or even 512 GB per machine. DDR5 is consumed especially quickly in such configurations.

The bots are configured for instant reaction: as soon as an item appears in stock, it is immediately purchased. A regular buyer simply does not have time to click “Buy.”

Consequences for Ordinary Users

“Such automated purchases by AI bots deprive regular consumers of the opportunity to make purchases,” Galileo notes.

Retailers are being forced to introduce per-customer limits, online queues, and even temporary cart restrictions. As a result, gamers, PC-building enthusiasts, and small businesses often see desired modules disappear seconds after restocking.

What Can Be Done

Until the DDR5 market stabilizes, experts recommend:

• Subscribing to restock notifications at major retailers;
• Using multiple browsers and accounts;
• Monitoring not only retail channels but also B2B suppliers (which sometimes have remaining stock);
• Considering DDR4 as a temporary alternative — it remains available and cheaper.

However, in the long term, shortages may persist. The AI market is growing exponentially, and demand for memory is expected to continue rising.

In Brief

AI bots are checking DDR5 product pages six times more frequently than real users — up to 551 requests per hour per page (every 6.5 seconds). More than 10 million blocked requests have been recorded. Bots are buying both consumer and industrial memory, leaving ordinary customers without access. The cause is the boom in local AI models requiring massive amounts of RAM. Retailers are introducing limits, but the situation remains tense.