Elon Musk, Tim Cook flag looming ‘global crisis’ amid AI-driven chip surge | Technology News
3 min readNew DelhiFeb 17, 2026 08:28 PM IST
AI has redefined our lives and work to a certain extent, helping us get things that would take days to do in a matter of seconds. However, the technology has also caused a temporary memory and storage shortage around the world, one that can last for years to come.
Now, several industry leaders, including Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook, are saying that we may be heading towards a global crisis. The memory chip shortage is already causing profits to take a dip, with Lenovo, the world’s largest PC maker, reporting a 21 per cent profit drop.
In the last few months, tech giants have invested billions in AI data centres, leading to a shortage of DRAM – one of the building blocks of almost all modern technology.
While Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that the global crunch will compress iPhone margins, Musk has said that they might have to build their very own memory fabrication plants.
Last month, Musk said during an earnings call that Tesla needs to build a “TeraFab”, a massive semiconductor plant that would help it “remove the probable constraint in three or four years.”
The billionaire added that existing tech giants like TSMC, Samsung and Micron Technology, which recently shut down its consumer-facing brand Crucial, are unable to offer Tesla the number of chips it needs to operate.
“We’ve got two choices: hit the chip wall or make a fab”, Musk added.
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One of the main reasons behind the memory crunch is AI data centres. Tech giants like Google and OpenAI have booked orders for a large chunk of memory chips to power their AI chatbots.
This has also caused PC, smartphone and laptop prices to soar significantly in the last few months.
Bloomberg says that a type of DRAM has recorded a 75% price increase from December 2025 to January 2026, and retailers are changing their strategy. The report goes on to say that despite increasing prices, the supplies are running dry even before the construction of these huge AI data centres begins.
As a result, Sony is also reportedly pushing back the PlayStation 6 launch date to 2028 or 2029. Switch 2, Nintendo’s latest handheld gaming console, is also considering increasing the price of its device this year.
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Electronic giants like Dell, Samsung and Xiaomi are now warning customers to get ready for price hikes this year, with some estimates claiming that the cost of DRAM, or RAM, may soon account for 30% of the total cost of a smartphone’s bill of materials.
