This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you'll be able to go to the hyperlink bellow: https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/artificial-intelligencer-ai-gold-rush-is-coming-your-gadgets-2026-01-14/and if you wish to take away this text from our web site please contact us [ad_1] Jan 8 (Reuters) - (This was initially revealed within the Artificial Intelligencer e-newsletter, which is issued each Wednesday. Sign up right here to study in regards to the newest breakthroughs in AI and tech. Email me, opens new tab to share any ideas.)Happy New Year and welcome again! I hope you had a joyful, restful vacation. Sign up right here.For our international tech editor Ken Li, the AI growth hit residence whereas purchasing for a Christmas present: his 13-year-old son’s first gaming PC. What ought to have been a simple buy became a pricing nightmare. Those gaming rigs sporting the most recent {hardware} had been 60% dearer than they had been merely just a few weeks in the past, revealing the non-public price of the reminiscence chip scarcity introduced on by the AI growth and now squeezing the patron provide chain.The sentiment was echoed contained in the buzzing resorts in Las Vegas this week, from the annual Consumer Electronics Show, the place Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang talked in regards to the exploding want for knowledge storage, lifting the inventory value of long-overlooked names from Sandisk to Micron as traders hunted for the following choke level within the AI provide chain.My colleagues have been monitoring this international scarcity and speaking to business insiders throughout 5 nations since final 12 months. We’ll decode what this implies for customers and the AI buildout. Plus, we’ve obtained the most recent knowledge on international VC funding and the ever-growing pie of AI. Scroll on.Our newest reporting in tech & AI:A brand new sort of chip scarcity has Wall Street buzzedThe AI growth has an sudden aspect impact, and it is heading in your pockets. The value of your subsequent smartphone or PC is probably going going up—not due to flashy new AI options, however due to a world scramble for some of the fundamental elements inside: reminiscence chips.What we’ve been listening to from greater than 40 business insiders in South Korea, Japan and the U.S. is constant: tech firms are scrambling for reminiscence. Microsoft, Google and ByteDance are racing to lock in provide from the three largest reminiscence chip makers SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron.The squeeze spans practically each sort of reminiscence — from humble flash chips utilized in USB drives and smartphones to high-bandwidth reminiscence (HBM). HBM acts like a multi-lane freeway that feeds knowledge to power-hungry AI chips, and costs for some varieties have greater than doubled since February.Chipmakers are naturally following the cash and in doing so, they’re ravenous the whole lot else. Producing HBM for AI servers is extra worthwhile than making standard reminiscence for telephones, laptops and TVs. As a consequence, producers are diverting capability towards AI at a time once they nonetheless can’t produce sufficient high-end chips to maintain up with demand.Consider the size. OpenAI, for instance, signed provide agreements with Samsung and SK Hynix final October for its Stargate venture, which might require as much as 900,000 wafers per thirty days by 2029 — roughly double at present’s international HBM output.Consumers are already feeling the crunch. In Tokyo’s electronics district of Akihabara, retailers have begun proscribing reminiscence purchases to curb hoarding. Samsung has warned that the scarcity impacts the whole lot from telephones to TVs and residential home equipment. Chinese smartphone makers Xiaomi and Realme stated they might have to lift costs or deal with promoting extra premium fashions. IDC and Counterpoint now anticipate the worldwide smartphone market to shrink subsequent 12 months as greater reminiscence prices filter by.Memory makers are increasing, however aid received’t come shortly. SK Hynix has stated its 2026 manufacturing is offered out, whereas Samsung says prospects have already lined up for subsequent 12 months’s HBM. New factories for standard reminiscence received’t meaningfully come on-line till 2027 or 2028.Memory has at all times been a cyclical enterprise, swinging between brutal busts and euphoric booms. What’s completely different this time is that AI is pulling the cycle ahead, draining provide from on a regular basis gadgets to feed knowledge facilities. There’s additionally a longer-term threat baked into this scramble. The business hasn’t seen significant unit development in years, but it’s now being requested to soak up unprecedented capital spending to serve AI workloads. New fabs price tens of billions of {dollars} and take years to return on-line, which implies at present’s scarcity might simply develop into tomorrow’s oversupply if AI demand slows or shifts.For now, the one certainty is that the AI gold rush is on, and the value of admission may simply be hidden in the price of your subsequent gadget.Chart of the week:Almost two-thirds of worldwide enterprise capital funding in 2025 went to AI firms, PitchBook knowledge exhibits.AI is not only a scorching sector; it is turning into the one sector that issues for a lot of enterprise capitalists. Almost two-thirds of worldwide enterprise capital funding in 2025 went to AI firms, persevering with a development that started with the breakout of ChatGPT, in line with the most recent knowledge from PitchBook, opens new tab. This AI funding growth helped propel international VC funding to its second-highest annual deal worth on file, simply $28.8 billion shy of the 2021 peak.To put it in numbers, annual AI funding has surged from simply over $70 billion to greater than $210 billion lately, with deal counts up 24% over that interval. Unlike the broad-based funding surge in 2021, this wave has all of the capital concentrated into hyper-focused AI bets — massive mannequin builders, infrastructure suppliers, and AI-native platforms — whereas funding for non-AI startups has slowed to a trickle.Reporting by Krystal Hu; Editing by Lisa ShumakerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tabPurchase Licensing RightsKrystal stories on enterprise capital and startups for Reuters. She covers Silicon Valley and past by the lens of cash and characters, with a deal with growth-stage startups, tech investments and AI. She has beforehand coated M&A for Reuters, breaking tales on Trump's SPAC and Elon Musk's Twitter financing. Previously, she reported on Amazon for Yahoo Finance, and her investigation of the corporate's retail observe was cited by lawmakers in Congress. Krystal began a profession in journalism by writing about tech and politics in China. She has a grasp's diploma from New York University, and enjoys a scoop of Matcha ice cream as a lot as getting a scoop at work. [ad_2] This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you'll be able to go to the hyperlink bellow: https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/artificial-intelligencer-ai-gold-rush-is-coming-your-gadgets-2026-01-14/and if you wish to take away this text from our web site please contact us