Apple increases prices for Macs and iPads, blaming memory chip shortage fueled by AI - PBS

Apple announced on June 26, 2026, that it would raise prices for its Mac and iPad products due to a memory chip shortage fueled by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company cited an unprecede... Read original →

The AI data center boom’s voracious demand for HBM and DRAM is triggering a 'memory squeeze' across consumer electronics. Apple’s price hikes reflect a systemic misallocation of semiconductor capacity: TSMC and Samsung prioritize advanced packaging for NVIDIA and AMD over mid-tier NAND and LPDDR5, starving devices like Macs and iPads. U.S. CHIPS Act subsidies, heavily skewed toward logic chips, neglect memory infrastructure—amplifying supply fragility. Rivals like Microsoft and Dell may follow suit on pricing, while Huawei, leveraging diversified memory sourcing outside Taiwan, China, could capture premium tablet share. If SK Hynix and Micron can’t scale HBM4 output within 18 months, OEMs will institutionalize an 'AI tax'—embedding $20–50 per device as indirect cost pass-through from data center inflation.