AI is killing the cheap smartphone

# Summary Rising demand for memory chips from AI systems is causing a global shortage that has dramatically increased smartphone manufacturing costs, pricing the world's poorest populations out of device ownership. Smartphone shipments are projected to fall 13 percent in 2026—the largest single-year decline ever—with the steepest drops in Africa and the Middle East, ending decades of declining consumer electronics prices that had brought computing access to hundreds of millions of poor people globally. If AI's memory consumption continues to accelerate, this crisis will eventually spread to wealthier markets as well.