It’s probably not news to anyone that prices for just about everything have gone through the roof in recent months and years. From utilities to groceries, rising costs have forced families to pinch pennies and change their shopping habits. However, there is a relatively new culprit for the skyrocketing prices of phones, laptops, appliances, cars, and more. It’s the massive AI companies buying up the memory chips that go into almost all of the electronic devices we use every day. People are calling it “RAMageddon,” and so far, Washington has largely failed to do anything about it.

The problem is that AI companies are spending hundreds of billions of dollars building data centers with servers that require many of the same memory and storage chips consumer technology companies and others use in their products. The supply simply can’t keep up with the extraordinary demand from AI companies for these chips, and in many cases, AI companies can outbid and sign longer contracts for chips than consumer tech companies. As a result, the chips in question, RAM and flash storage, have jumped in price by 50% or even 100%, sometimes more, in just a few months.