India, July 18 -- Prices of smartphones and laptops have gone up. This may sound counterintuitive because our devices were supposed to get smarter with AI coming in. But we hadn't imagined it would get costlier. Turns out, the culprit isn't the software that powers these devices. It's the enormous amount of memory needed by the AI servers powering these services such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. It is consuming memory chips at such a pace that manufacturers are finding them harder-and more expensive-to source.

So, they are being forced into uncomfortable choices. Either absorb higher costs and make less money; or pass those costs on to consumers. Other ways to do this include trimming specifications, delaying launches or reducing the n...