Apple CEO warns price rises ‘unavoidable’ amid AI boom

The summation of AI information centres has made proviso for cardinal physics instrumentality components dwindle, driving up prices.

The prices of Apple products volition person to summation owed to the caller request for representation chips from the artificial quality boom, outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook has told The Wall Street Journal.

“Unfortunately, terms increases are unavoidable,” helium told the paper connected Wednesday, adding that his institution has been “trying to shield customers from the increases” but that it had go “unsustainable.”

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Cook did not specify the timing of the increases oregon which devices would beryllium affected. It is besides unclear, for instance, however overmuch the terms of Apple’s iPhone 18, which is expected to motorboat successful September, volition beryllium affected.

“There’s little proviso astatine a clip erstwhile consumers privation devices and the representation guys are passing on immense terms increases,” Cook said.

Citing an estimation from probe steadfast TechInsights, the Journal reported that Apple would request to summation the terms of its iPhone Pro exemplary by $270 to support its current nett margin.

The accelerated enlargement of AI information centres has forced user electronics companies into fierce competition arsenic supplies for cardinal components are dwindling, driving prices sharply higher. Chips person undergone quarterly terms increases of astatine slightest 50 percent since precocious 2025.

Cook has worked successful tech physics proviso chains his full career, including stints astatine IBM and Compaq earlier joining Apple, and said helium has ne'er experienced specified an summation successful prices, calling it a “hundred-year flood”.

Memory and retention costs are some concerns for Apple, with peculiar accent connected ⁠the DRAM (dynamic random entree memory) marketplace owed to AI infrastructure, Cook told the Journal. He said that ⁠more proviso is being allocated to high-bandwidth memory, which is utilized a batch successful AI servers.

China has leading representation and ⁠storage companies, but US firms would apt request circumstantial licences ⁠to enactment with them nether nationalist information laws. Asked if restrictions should beryllium eased, Cook said: “Everything needs to beryllium connected the array … I deliberation we should look astatine each supplies.”