BT has said the cost of smartphones could rise as technology companies buy up semiconductor chips because of the boom in artificial intelligence, putting pressure on supply chains. The telecoms company's chief executive, Allison Kirkby, said she was anticipating shortages as tech firms bought large quantities of memory chips to power the datacentres relied on by AI.
Management and union leaders at Samsung Electronics failed to reach a last-minute deal over wages Wednesday, raising prospects for a strike at the South Korean electronics giant that could rattle global semiconductor supplies and the country's trade-dependent economy.
Samsung Electronics is facing one of the most serious workers' strikes in its history, with a protest which could affect the overall economy and the group's global supply of semiconductors. The company's workers' union has announced that more than 48,000 workers will stop work on Thursday to protest for 18 days over their bonus payments. Samsung Electronics is a major engine in South Korea's economy, producing revenues equal to about 12.5 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).
“this is not solely a demand and an AI buildout and a chip demand from Wall Street or from the US. This is all around the world.” The host added that “the scramble for those hot stocks is more around in Asia certainly than it is on Wall Street itself.”
Since the start of 2026, Tesla Inc., Apple Inc. and a dozen other major corporations have signaled that the shortage of DRAM, or dynamic random access memory - the fundamental building block of almost all technology - will constrain production. Cook warned it will compress iPhone margins. Micron Technology Inc. called the bottleneck "unprecedented." Musk got to the intractable nature o f the problem when he declared Tesla is going to have to build its own memory fabrication plant.
Advaithi didn't set out to ride the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. After becoming CEO of Flex (formerly known as Flextronics) in 2019, she zeroed in on the contract manufacturing company's power-focused business, which makes components that manage, regulate, and distribute power for advanced semiconductors and systems. Advaithi understood that business segment well from her years working at Eaton, the power management company.
China is moving to dominate the global market for polysilicon, a key material used in chips, by flooding the industry with cheap, subsidised product to drive producers in other countries out of business. This is according to a report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a think tank based in Washington D.C. It warns that Beijing is providing "significant support" to its own polysilicon industry in an effort to establish loca businesses as the dominant global suppliers.
