Why Are Phones and Laptops More Expensive?

Ed Zitron says NVIDIA chips are pushing up the price of phones, laptops, and every other consumer electronic because they crowd out ordinary computer memory.

Three companies make all the world's memory: Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung. NVIDIA sells millions of GPUs that use high bandwidth memory, a special kind of memory that takes more space on the fabricator and leaves less room for the ordinary memory everyone else needs, including AI servers. Deutsche Bank says 50 to 60 percent of NVIDIA revenue comes from hyperscalers, a handful of companies that mostly need debt to keep buying chips, and the chips themselves keep getting more expensive. Because so many of the chips have already been sold, often months or years ahead, the three memory makers have jacked up prices because they can.

The higher memory prices land on every consumer electronic, another cost of the AI boom.