Your next phone or laptop is about to cost more, and AI’s RAM crisis — plus a weak Canadian dollar — is among the reasons why

For Canadians who already struggle with inflation across most consumer goods, especially essentials like groceries, the prospect of pricier laptops and smartphones — on top of a weak Canadian dollar — adds yet another pressure to household budgets.

What is RAM, and why does AI need so much of it?

RAM, which stands for random access memory, is what allows users to run programs on their laptops or smartphones, delivering the information those processes need in nanoseconds. Think of it as the short-term memory of your device’s brain — it processes what you’re doing right now, then gets wiped clean at the end of each session.

AI applications have proven to be the biggest RAM consumers — not just on consumer devices, but behind the scenes at the data centres that power these apps. As AI spreads, so too does the demand for data centre infrastructure, all of it requiring immense amounts of electricity and water, plus lightning-fast, ultra-efficient processing power fuelled by RAM chips.

The resulting chip shortage, or RAMageddon, alongside a manifold increase in prices has brought many companies to a turning point: Dedicate RAM chips to AI ventures, or to customer-facing products — or absorb the escalating costs of trying to do both.

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Apple CEO points to ‘significantly higher memory costs’

In the world of consumer tech, there’s no corporation as dominant as Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) — a company whose products sit in the hands and on the desks of millions of Canadians.

Tim Cook, the company’s outgoing CEO, recently flagged memory prices as a key obstacle to future revenue during the company’s Q2 2026 earnings call. Cook and his team, while noting the quarter’s financial successes, acknowledged “supply issues” that analysts pressed them on during the question period.

Though Apple’s executives noted that the largest supply constraint they’re seeing isn’t memory but the limited availability of some other chip components — amid zealous demand for products like the Mac Mini and MacStudio — they did expand further on the growing issue of memory limitations.

“In the December quarter, we really had minimal impact due to memory, and you can see that in the gross margin results. We said it would be a bit more in the March quarter, and we did see higher memory costs in the March quarter, [which] were partially offset by benefits from carry-in inventory,” Cook said.

“For the June quarter…we expect significantly higher memory costs. They are also partly offset by the benefit of carry-in inventory. But I can tell you that beyond the June quarter, we believe memory costs will drive an increasing impact on our business. And we’ll continue to evaluate this.”

This admission runs counter to a long-held belief — considered an empirical law — that computing power should get cheaper as it grows exponentially. But AI has managed to dramatically reverse that, mushrooming at such an accelerated pace that it has become difficult to measure.

Apple’s executives added that they will be considering “a range of options” for dealing with the new realities of memory costs. With incoming CEO John Ternus taking the reins in September and planning to invest more profits into innovation, the details of that strategy remain to be seen.

What this means for Canadians buying tech

It’s not just Apple and other industry giants that will have to shell out more for memory: household electronics — especially laptops — will become significantly more expensive and harder to upgrade.

And the pain is compounded for Canadian consumers. Device prices domestically are typically set in U.S. dollars and then converted, meaning a weaker loonie amplifies every price increase at the manufacturing level. When Apple or any other manufacturer raises prices to offset higher RAM costs, Canadian buyers absorb that increase — and then some.

Canadian households already spend significant amounts of money on information and communications technology equipment, according to Statistics Canada. Any broad-based price increase in consumer electronics will be felt directly in household budgets — especially for families replacing aging devices or investing in upgrades for school or work.