Sridhar Vembu has warned that the AI boom is no longer just a story about chatbots, GPUs and billion-dollar data centres. It is beginning to show up in the price of everyday technology. Smartphones, laptops and other gadgets are becoming more expensive as AI companies pour huge amounts of money into data centres and compete for the same memory and semiconductor capacity used by consumer devices, Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu said in a social media post.
The result is an unusual situation for technology buyers in 2026. The same investment wave that is helping build more powerful AI systems is also putting pressure on the supply of components needed to make phones and laptops. Memory prices have risen sharply, while manufacturers are dealing with higher costs and tighter supplies.
AI data centres are changing the chip market
Vembu feels that the reason starts with the enormous amount of hardware needed to run modern AI systems. Technology companies are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on AI infrastructure, including servers, GPUs, networking equipment and high-performance memory. Goldman Sachs economists estimate that AI investment could reach around $600 billion in the US alone in 2026.
"The sticker shock seen by anyone trying to upgrade their smart phone or laptop in 2026? That is the AI investment boom, funded (ultimately) by the mother of all credit bubbles unleashed post pandemic. It has distorted markets ranging from electric power generation, transformers, diesel back up generators, cooling systems, memory, CPUs and of course, GPUs," Vembu said on X.
