A global memory chip shortage fuelled by an explosive growth of AI data centres is likely to result in significantly higher laptop prices, including for Maltese consumers.

WhosWho.mt asked three major Maltese computer and electronics retailers whether laptop prices are likely to be impacted by this crisis and their responses were all clear.

“We are monitoring this closely, and yes, we do believe the situation is starting to materialise,” Klikk General Manager Gordon Zammit said.

“The market signals are no longer theoretical: AI-related server and data-centre demand is putting real pressure on global DRAM and NAND supply, and this can feed through into end-customer pricing.”

Klikk General Manager Gordon Zammit (LinkedIn)

SCAN Operations Director Stephen Scerri said that everything with memory, a fundamental building block of most technology, will increase in price. This includes GPUs (graphics processing units), laptops, desktop computers and SSDs.

“Some prices have already started to increase unfortunately,” he said.

Intercomp CEO Paul Mercieca said the industry is seeing a month-on-month increase in price, mainly driven by RAM and SSDs.

“The increase is even more evident in infrastructure – servers and storage solutions,” he warned.

“Various manufacturers have pledged their entire manufacturing lines towards AI leaving a manufacturing vacuum in the laptop/desktop segment.”

While consumer tech prices are set to rise across the board, the extent of the increases will depend on the product. 

SCAN Operations Director Stephen Scerri

Mr Mercieca said that once the current local stock is sold out, the new stock will carry an increase of around €100–€200, which could be more or less depending on what type of memory the laptop uses.

This cost will be passed on to the consumer. 

Mr Zammit said that higher-value items, including premium laptops, gaming devices, AI-capable systems and products with larger memory and storage configurations, could rise in price by several hundreds of euro.

“Other items are also likely to increase, but by a more moderate percentage rather than by such large absolute amounts,” he said.

“In general, the lower the price of the product, the smaller the absolute increase is likely to be.”

He added that this reality doesn’t only impact laptops but all products that heavily rely on memory and storage components – including smartphones, tablets and other consumer electronics.

Intercomp CEO Paul Mercieca

“Upward pricing pressure is real and is beginning to show in the market, but the effect will vary significantly depending on the type of product, its specification and its price,” he said.

Since the start of the year, major corporations such as Apple and Tesla, have warned that their production will be constrained by a shortage of memory chips.

This squeeze is mainly due to the rapid growth of AI data centres by companies like OpenAI and Alphabet Inc to run chatbots and other applications.

These systems require specialised AI processors, which are widely created by Nvidia and which require large amounts of memory.

With more and more memory chips being bought up for AI purposes, there are fewer available for consumer electronics.