Nvidia Raises DGX Spark Price Amid Memory Shortage

Nvidia has introduced a new version of its personal AI workstation, DGX Spark, with reduced memory capacity at a higher price point. The new model comes with 64GB of unified memory, down from 128GB in the original model, and is priced at $4,999. This represents a $1,000 increase over the introductory price of the 128GB model just one year ago.

The reduced memory capacity means that the maximum AI model size that can run on a single unit drops from 200 billion to 100 billion parameters. However, connecting two 64GB units via cable expands total memory to 128GB, enabling models of up to 200 billion parameters. In tests conducted by Nvidia, a two-unit configuration delivered up to 1.7x the performance of a single device.

The pricing decision is tied to a structural shortage in the memory market, with major suppliers warning that production lines are heavily concentrated on High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) for AI data centers, leaving supply of general-purpose high-performance memory like LPDDR5X extremely constrained. Suppliers have projected the supply-demand imbalance could persist through 2027 and 2028.