The cost of memory chips is skyrocketing, and even the biggest companies are feeling it. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently told the Wall Street Journal that raising prices on Apple products is now "unavoidable," likening the spike in chip costs to a hundred-year flood unlike anything he'd seen in forty years in the business. And it's not just Apple. If you're in the market for a new laptop, gaming console, or even a car, you may have noticed the sticker price creeping up. High prices have been a stubborn fact across the economy for a while, but what's happening with electronics is unique: it isn't really about broader macroeconomic trends, supply-chain snarls, or the price of gas. It comes down to AI.

The data centers behind the AI boom run on memory chips—the same basic kind that sits inside your phone, your laptop, your car, and your home internet equipment. Only a handful of companies make them, and the AI giants are buying up everything they can at almost any price. When a few buyers with bottomless budgets corner the market for a part everyone else needs, the price goes up for everyone—including the companies that build and operate America's broadband networks, whose routers and gateways run on those same chips. Recently, a broad coalition of industry groups wrote Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick warning of an "urgent imbalance in the market for memory chips that could lead to significant and sustained near-term price increases for American households."

Evan is joined by former U.S. Senator Cory Gardner, now President and CEO of NCTA—The Internet & Television Association. His organization represents Internet service providers building broadband across the country, much of it fiber in rural America, as part of government programs to close the digital divide. They dig into Gardner's proposed policy solutions to the memory-chip crunch, the other ways AI is reshaping his industry, wireless spectrum policy, the security of our networks, and more.

References:

• Cross-Sector Industry Coalition letter to Treasury Secretary Bessent and Commerce Secretary Lutnick on the memory-chip shortage, (June 3, 2026) — https://www.ncta.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Industry-Coalition-Letter-re-Memory-Shortage.pdf
• "America's AI Infrastructure Is Threatened by Memory-Chip Shortages," National Review — https://www.nationalreview.com/2026/05/can-america-fix-its-chip-crisis/
• "Here's How the U.S. Can Win the Age of Artificial Intelligence," National Review — https://www.nationalreview.com/2026/03/heres-how-the-u-s-can-win-the-age-of-artificial-intelligence/
• "As Other Costs Rise, Internet Is Doing More for the Same Price," The Washington Times — https://www.ncta.com/news/cory-gardner-washington-times-internet-delivers-more-value-without-rising-costs
• "Wi-Fi and Employment in the United States," Dr. Raul Katz / Telecom Advisory Services for WifiForward (March 2025) — https://wififorward.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Wi-Fi-and-employment_3.25.25-v259.pdf