We just lost a huge RAM and SSD manufacturer to AI — Micron is killing Crucial after nearly 30 years to support "larger, strategic customers"

It's a sad day to be a PC gamer, builder, or enthusiast, with Micron — a huge producer of random-access memory (RAM), solid-state drives (SSDs), and other storage solutions — announcing the end of Crucial, its brand of RAM kits and SSDs made available to consumers.

Crucial Consumer Business has been a major player in the PC building market since it was established nearly 30 years ago in 1996, competing with the likes of Samsung, SK Hynix, Corsair, and Seagate, among others. Now, though, it's being shuttered as Micron shifts its manufacturing efforts to focus solely on supporting AI companies.

The firm announced the news on Wednesday morning, explaining that the decision "reflects Micron’s commitment to its ongoing portfolio transformation and the resulting alignment of its business to secular, profitable growth vectors in memory and storage."

Its ultimate goal is to strengthen its business performance in the long-term and "and create value for strategic customers as well as stakeholders" — AKA, big corporations attempting to experiment with and develop artifical intelligence products, not people like you and I.

"The AI-driven growth in the data center has led to a surge in demand for memory and storage. Micron has made the difficult decision to exit the Crucial consumer business in order to improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments," said Micron executive vice president and chief business officer Sumit Sadana in a statement.

“Thanks to a passionate community of consumers, the Crucial brand has become synonymous with technical leadership, quality and reliability of leading-edge memory and storage products. We would like to thank our millions of customers, hundreds of partners and all of the Micron team members who have supported the Crucial journey for the last 29 years," he added.

Micron says it's committed to continuing the sale of Crucial products until the end of its current second fiscal quarter, which is February 2026. Once March begins, however, you'll no longer be able to purchase Crucial RAM and SSD from PC part retailers.

The firm has also stated it "will work closely with partners and customers through this transition," and that it will continue to provide support for Crucial products and fulfill any warranty obligations. Additionally, it intends to keep selling "Micron-branded enterprise products to commercial channel customers globally."

As for those working for the Crucial brand that will soon find themselves out of work, Micron has noted it intends to offer its employees "redeployment opportunities" for open positions elsewhere in the firm.

All in all, it's good that the company seems to be — or at least plans to be — handling the closure of Crucial ethically, but this is still a tragedy for consumers and hobbyists looking to build or purchase a PC. Not only are we losing a reputable and well-respected RAM and storage brand, but we're also likely going to see prices climb, too.

Indeed, the price of RAM has already skyrocketed due to a surge of demand from AI companies, resulting in kits themselves as well as devices with RAM in them becoming more and more difficult to afford. Demand for RAM is through the roof even as OpenAI declares "code red" and companies turn to debt to fund AI, with developers desperately investing more and more in the hopes for a grand payoff — and Micron is eager to provide supply.

Yes, it certainly makes sense from a business standpoint, but it sure does suck for the rest of us that want affordable RAM and storage for our gaming rigs and creative work PCs. The shortage of RAM on the market is already frustrating, and I'm not looking forward to it getting worse.

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