The chips that store data inside your phone, laptop and game console are getting scarce and expensive — and the companies that make and buy them say the squeeze is only beginning.
Samsung expects the memory shortage to get worse through 2027 and stretch into 2028, according to TechCrunch. The cause is AI data centers, which are consuming enormous quantities of memory chips, pushing up component costs and, ultimately, the retail prices of consumer devices.
Apple is already feeling it. On the company's earnings call, CEO Tim Cook told analysts that Apple is fighting "a hundred-year flood" on memory pricing, according to Tom's Hardware. Cook said Apple will pay even more for memory in the September quarter than it did in the June quarter, following recent price hikes. Tom's Hardware reports that memory costs ate into Apple's gross margin, and that Apple nearly doubled its inventory to $11.09 billion — the classic move of a buyer stocking up ahead of further increases.
That detail is worth sitting with. Apple is one of the largest and most powerful component buyers on earth, with supply contracts most manufacturers can only envy. If Apple is absorbing margin damage and hoarding parts, smaller device makers have far less cushion.
The basic dynamic is a bidding war. Memory manufacturing capacity takes years and billions of dollars to expand, so it cannot respond quickly to a demand spike. AI server builders are willing to pay more per chip than phone and PC makers, so the supply flows toward them first.
Why it matters: the cost of building AI infrastructure is no longer confined to tech company balance sheets — it is starting to show up in the price of ordinary consumer electronics, and by these forecasts it will keep doing so for years.