The global memory shortage due to rapid AI data center expansion is hitting everyone, even the biggest tech companies in the world.
Case in point: Sony is suspending orders for almost all SD card sales from both vendors and consumers, per PetaPixel. The announcement was made on Sony's Japanese website, and explicitly blamed the lack of available memory as a reason why it can't fulfill SD card orders for the time being. Sony's full statement is as follows:
Mashable Light Speed
Thank you for your continued patronage of Sony products.
Due to the global shortage of semiconductors (memory) and other factors, it is anticipated that supply will not be able to meet demand for CFexpress memory cards and SD memory cards for the foreseeable future. Therefore, we have decided to temporarily suspend the acceptance of orders from our authorized dealers and from customers at the Sony Store from March 27, 2026 onwards.
Regarding the resumption of order acceptance, we will consider it while monitoring the supply situation and will announce it separately on the product information page.
CFExpress Type A and Type B cards, as well as regular SD cards, are all affected by this move. Some low-end cards appear to still be in production, per PetaPixel, but as it stands, just assume that any card you see on a store shelf is the last one you'll see there for a while from Sony. The company's statement even straight up said that it doesn't know when it will be able to get the manufacturing up and running again.
Sony follows Western Digital as a fellow big tech memory manufacturer that is feeling the squeeze from the needs of data centers. Western Digital announced in February that it had sold out of all hard drives for the year, with 10 whole months to go. This wasn't a great week for Sony in general, as the company also announced massive price hikes on its current-gen PlayStation video game consoles, most likely for the same reasons that it had to stop making SD cards.