Thinking about buying a new laptop or game console anytime soon? Be prepared to pay up.
Point the finger at the AI boom. Data centers have led to a surge in demand for memory, a critical piece of computer hardware that’s needed to quickly process information.
While that’s good news for memory makers like Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix, it’s bad news for consumers.
Chipmakers can’t produce enough memory for both data centers and consumer devices, leading to a shortage that’s driven up prices for products from Apple, Microsoft and Nintendo, among others.
And experts say there’s no near-term fix in sight. The shortage is expected to persist until at least 2028 as memory giants work to build new plants. Even then, some analysts don’t expect prices to return to pre-shortage levels.
