Rampant AI demand for memory is fueling a growing chip crisis

A growing procession of tech industry leaders including Elon Musk and Tim Cook are warning about a global crisis in the making: A shortage of memory chips is beginning to hammer profits, derail corporate plans and inflate price tags on everything from laptops and smartphones to automobiles and data centers — and the crunch is only going to get worse. 

Since the start of 2026, Tesla Inc., Apple Inc. and a dozen other major corporations have signaled that the shortage of DRAM, or dynamic random access memory ...