AI giveth and AI taketh away. While some people are reaping the benefits of AI assistance enabling them to work more efficiently, the technology behind this is almost relentlessly hungry for various resources including computer components, and that means the supply of these for consumer devices is becoming scarce.
RAM is the latest victim of the race to feed the AI beast. This is usually just referred to as "memory", and most tech devices need this - PCs, phones and various other smart devices. In the last few weeks, the price of RAM has massively spiked and shows no signs of returning to its usual levels. As selling RAM to AI companies for their data centres is so profitable, this is being prioritised on making it available for the devices we use.
The bit of Samsung that makes RAM has reportedly told the bit of Samsung that makes phones that it can't necessary guarantee supply of these RAM chips in the long term. RAM manufacturer Crucial who have been supplying RAM to consumers pretty much forever relatively are pulling out of the market altogether as supplying to AI companies is far more lucrative.
There's also signs that this may be happening with SSD drives too - hard drive space, in other words, Again, these are used very widely in exactly the same devices that RAM is needed for. These are now selling for about twice what they were in the summer.
It doesn't take a genius to work out that if all the parts that make up our PCs and phones are becoming much more expensive, the price of those devices will have to increase. Many manufacturers have already announced price increases, and we should expect all others to follow whether they formally announce it or not. Let's hope the efficiencies AI brings are worth the hit to our pockets this will cause...