An Nvidia executive said shortages of consumer graphics processing units (GPUs) stem from insufficient memory supplies.

Ida Keita, Nvidia’s vice president of developer relations, told THE ELEC after an RTX Spark launch event at COEX in Seoul’s Samseong-dong district on Oct. 16 that supply difficulties facing consumers, including gamers, reflect broader semiconductor supply chain problems involving not only GPUs but also DRAM.

“This is not something Nvidia can control,” Keita said in response to a question about consumer GPU shortages.

Popular consumer graphics cards are available in limited quantities and are often sold through lotteries or on a first-come, first-served basis. Nvidia’s flagship consumer GPU, the RTX 5090, is trading for as much as 15 million won or more, roughly five times its tax-inclusive suggested retail price.

Citing the RTX Spark launched that day, Keita said, “Considering the workloads RTX Spark can handle, it can save users a tremendous amount of money over the long term compared with buying other computers.”

Keita added that the device can run artificial intelligence (AI) models with more than 100 billion parameters locally. “Because it doesn’t require external cloud services, there are no token usage costs,” Keita said, emphasizing that the product offers value despite its high price.

RTX Spark-based laptops start at approximately 4.7 million won, with prices reaching as much as 10 million won depending on specifications. The company attributed the high prices to rising memory costs.

“When we were developing the product, 128GB was reasonably affordable, and we considered it the optimal configuration,” an Nvidia official said at the event. “We didn’t anticipate memory prices rising this much.”