TNB Tech Minute: Apple Plans Price Hikes Due to Soaring Chip Costs

Speaker 10:00

Many companies are struggling to scale their AI deployments or even move them past the pilot stage. Often the problem isn't technology, but organizational misalignment around goals, processes, and incentives. At the break, join Caroline Roach, a senior partner at IBM Consulting, to learn why.

Imani Moise· Host0:14

Here's your morning TNB Tech Minute for Thursday, June 18th. I'm Imani Moise for The Wall Street Journal. We exclusively report that Apple plans to raise device prices because of soaring costs for memory and storage chips. CEO Tim Cook told us that skyrocketing demand from AI companies has quadrupled the cost of chips, making consumer price hikes unavoidable. Analysts estimate that Apple would need to add about two hundred and seventy dollars to the price of the next iPhone Pro model in order to keep its profit margin steady. Morgan Stanley estimates smartphone and computer prices across the US will increase by fifteen percent this year. Intel stock got a boost this morning after President Trump said in a Truth Social post that Apple has agreed to work with Intel to design and build chips in the US. Spokespeople for Intel and Apple didn't respond to a request for comment. Since the federal government announced a ten percent stake in Intel last August, the company's shares have surged fourfold. Over the past year, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has met with leaders at Apple, SpaceX, and NVIDIA to try and convince them to go into business with Intel. With the Apple deal, Intel has now signed partnerships with all three. And in another exclusive, we report that Baseten, an AI infrastructure