Tim Cook Warns of Higher Apple Prices Amid Unsustainable Chip Shortage Fueled by AI - BBN Times

Apple CEO Tim Cook has warned that the company may need to raise product prices due to an escalating chip shortage fueled by artificial intelligence technology. This warning highlights the severe chal... Read original →

The AI compute arms race is fracturing the capacity equilibrium between mature and advanced logic nodes. TSMC’s 3nm lines—overwhelmed by NVIDIA’s H200 demand—are squeezing Apple’s A/M-series chip allocation, forcing Cook to pass cost pressure downstream. This exposes the geopolitical fragility of over-concentrating cutting-edge manufacturing in Taiwan, China: any EUV tool delay or power disruption halts global consumer electronics innovation. U.S. CHIPS Act subsidies won’t yield meaningful buffer capacity before 2026. Samsung and Intel may vie for Apple’s secondary supplier role, but yield ramp timelines limit near-term substitution. Over the next 18 months, high-end SoC pricing will structurally rise, accelerating Apple’s vertical integration in baseband and packaging—and boosting RISC-V adoption in edge AI devices.