By Sachin Mohan · AIM Media House
The same AI infrastructure investment that retailers are racing to deploy is now raising the cost of the hardware their businesses and customers depend on.
A coalition of nine US trade associations made that argument explicitly in a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on June 3, 2026, warning that AI data center expansion is creating a memory chip shortage with direct consequences for retail supply chains, consumer electronics pricing, and the IT infrastructure retailers rely on to operate.
Signatories include the National Retail Federation, the Retail Industry Leaders Association, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, AdvaMed, the Medical Device Manufacturers Association, The Internet and Television Association, the Telecommunications Industry Association, ACA Connects, and The Rural Broadband Association.
"Expanding artificial intelligence data centers consumes an enormous share of available memory chip capacity," the coalition wrote.
"The result has been an unprecedented surge in the price of memory chips and reduced supply of these chips for manufacturing and consumer-facing industries." How the Shortage Is Being Created Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix, which together control over 95% of global DRAM production, have increasingly redirected manufacturing capacity toward high-bandwidth memory and high-performance DRAM, the specialized chips that power AI data centers.
That redirection has been deliberate and accelerating. HBM commands significantly higher margins than standard DRAM, and with AI infrastructure spending at $650 billion in 2026 alone, the economic incentive to prioritize data center customers over consumer electronics manufacturers is straightforward.
AI data centers are projected to consume roughly 70% of total global memory chip output by the end of 2026.
TrendForce reported that conventional DRAM contract prices rose roughly 93% to 98% quarter over quarter in Q1 2026 alone, a price movement that far outpaces inflation in any other input category retailers are managing.
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