The rapidly increasing demand for Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer limited to just tech companies. This may also affect the pockets of common customers. Recently, Apple has increased the prices of some MacBook and iPad models citing the rising prices of memory chips. Now experts believe that smartphones, laptops, gaming consoles, cloud services and even cars may become expensive in the future.

In fact, big companies like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Nvidia are spending billions of dollars on AI infrastructure. Running AI models requires large amounts of high bandwidth memory (HBM). This is why companies like Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron are now focusing more on the production of HBM chips, due to which the supply of normal DRAM and NAND memory chips is decreasing.

HBM is an advanced memory technology, which combined with AI processor provides extremely fast data processing. DRAM works as temporary memory of phones and laptops, while NAND is used for storage. Due to the increasing demand of AI, the availability of these traditional chips is being affected.

According to reports, in 2026, about 70% of the memory chips manufactured in the world will be used by the AI ​​industry. Micron has also said that in the recent quarter, the prices of DRAM chips have increased by more than 60% and the prices of NAND chips have increased by more than 80%.

Laptops, tabs, gaming can become expensive
If this situation continues, companies may pass the burden of increased costs on to customers. Its effect can be seen on the prices of smartphones, laptops, tablets, gaming consoles and cloud services. The automobile industry will also not be left out of this, because thousands of semiconductor chips are used in modern cars.

This is an important issue for India also. The country is the second largest smartphone market in the world and is becoming a major center of electronics manufacturing. In such a situation, if the prices of memory chips increase at the global level, then electronic products sold in India may also become expensive. However, the government’s Semiconductor Mission is being considered an important step towards reducing this dependence in future.