AI chip shortage drives major Apple and Microsoft price hikes - MSN

The semiconductor industry is facing severe shortages, with AI chip demand driving up component costs and forcing tech giants Apple and Microsoft to significantly raise product prices. Apple increased... Read original →

The AI chip shortage is triggering structural turbulence across the semiconductor value chain. Soaring demand for AI servers has diverted memory and logic capacity away from consumer electronics, forcing Apple and Microsoft to pass on costs—a move signaling a strategic realignment toward AI-centric manufacturing. Geopolitical friction around Taiwan, China and Hong Kong, China, combined with tightened U.S.-EU export controls, inflates supply chain redundancy costs. Competitors like Samsung and Google may accelerate in-house NPU/TPU development to reduce foundry dependence, while TSMC could further ration non-AI wafer allocations. Over the next 12–24 months, premium smartphones and PCs will see broader price hikes, and automotive/industrial chips face secondary allocation squeeze. This crisis marks the painful but inevitable shift from general-purpose to AI-optimized semiconductor production paradigms.