AI Next WaveOctober 1, 2026
AI Is Raising Laptop Prices. Its Power Bill Is Still Unassigned.
Micron says the memory squeeze has no end date. This week, Washington pushed back the decision on who pays for the power plants AI needs.
The Short Version
On Wednesday evening, Micron posted a quarter that looks like a typo. Sales came in nearly five times higher than a year ago, and the company kept about 87 cents of gross profit on every dollar. Then CEO Sanjay Mehrotra told analysts what matters for anyone shopping for a phone or laptop: "We do not have line of sight to when supply and demand will return to balance." AI data centers are absorbing much of the supply of memory chips, and Micron expects the squeeze to get worse over the next two years. Phone and laptop makers are already passing the cost along. The same week, the AI build-out's other big bill landed in Washington. Federal regulators held up an emergency plan to buy more power for data centers in the country's largest grid, and the Senate stalled a bill on who covers those costs. A tougher bipartisan fix now waits until after the election. So two prices most households can't avoid are now tied to AI. One is already moving, and who pays the other is still undecided.
A Chipmaker With No End Date
Micron makes the memory and storage chips that go into data centers, PCs and phones. In its fiscal fourth quarter, it booked $54.2 billion in revenue, up from $11.3 billion a year earlier, and it expects an even bigger quarter next. Mehrotra's own explanation for the surge is one word long: AI. In the earnings release he wrote that "memory enhances this intelligence and the competitiveness of our customers' platforms," and said Micron is spending more to keep up.
The details on the call explain why relief is slow. Prices for DRAM, the working memory in every computer and phone, rose by a high-teens percentage in a single quarter, and storage chip prices rose about 30 percent. Mehrotra said more than three quarters of Micron's 2027 output is already spoken for. Big customers have signed long-term agreements to lock in supply, and the company says those deals cover more than a third of its expected revenue through 2030.
New factories are coming, but slowly. Micron's next new fab is due to start producing wafers in mid-2027, another in late 2028, and a New York site in 2030. Even with that, Mehrotra expects "greater tightness in the industry in '27 and in '28 versus '26." When the supplier with the best view of the order book says it can't see the end, I take that at face value, and I'd plan any device purchase for the next two years around it.
Where the Squeeze Reaches You
Phones and PCs are where the squeeze turns into a price tag. In its prepared remarks, Micron expects PC and phone industry revenue to grow this year, driven by the premium end of the market, "despite potential double-digit overall unit declines in both markets." That points to fewer new devices sold and higher prices for the ones that are.
That's already visible on store shelves. Several Chinese phone makers raised prices on their new flagships, Caixin reported on Tuesday. Oppo and Xiaomi added 500 to 1,100 yuan to standard versions of the Find X10 and 18 Pro, and up to 3,000 yuan to versions with more storage. Honor's Magic 9 rose by up to 3,000 yuan as well. Caixin traced the increases directly to demand for chips in AI data centers, which has left phone makers short on memory and passing the cost on to buyers.
Laptops are moving the same way. Schenker, a laptop maker that sells under the XMG brand, said last week that the laptop memory modules it buys cost six times what they did in July 2025. It raised prices on its models by roughly $113 to $342. The company added that it would cut prices if its input costs fall, which is a fair promise and also a reminder of how far away that looks. AI Next Wave covered Apple's $100 increase on the iPhone 18 Pro on Sept. 19, when AI memory demand was the widely cited reason. Two weeks later, the supplier itself is saying the pressure will last.
A Week of Unfinished Business on Power
Memory is the cost you see once at checkout. Electricity shows up every month, and this week the fight over who pays for AI's power needs got pushed back again.
The country's largest grid, PJM, serves 65 million people in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia, from New Jersey and Pennsylvania to Ohio, Virginia and Illinois. PJM asked federal regulators to approve an emergency purchase of about 6.8 gigawatts of new power capacity, enough to cover a shortfall that Utility Dive describes as largely driven by data center demand forecasts. Bidding was set to open on Sept. 30.
On Tuesday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission accepted the plan's basic idea and flagged three pieces that may be unfair. They cover how the costs get split up, exit rules for the companies that own transmission lines, and the cash collateral that power buyers would have to post. One Virginia electric cooperative said it alone would have needed about $2 billion in collateral. FERC suspended the plan for five months, which moves its start date to Feb. 28, 2027. Chairman Laura Swett called the proposal a "deeply flawed, eleventh-hour procurement mechanism" and warned that its flaws carried billion-dollar consequences for consumers. PJM said it would work quickly to fix the problems and plans an update at a stakeholder committee meeting on Oct. 7.
Congress moved the same week and landed in a similar place. On Wednesday, a Senate procedural vote on the Ratepayer Protection Act failed 57 to 43, short of the 60 votes needed. The House had passed it 417 to 3 earlier this month. The bill would direct states to consider standards that make data centers and other very large power users pay for the grid upgrades they require. Majority Leader John Thune pitched it as a simple way to protect families from the higher energy costs tied to data centers. Democrats said the word "consider" left it toothless. Senate Democrats, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, "want to make it mandatory for data centers to cover their own costs, by law." Four Democrats voted with Republicans.
The same day, a bipartisan group of four senators released a 417-page permitting package, the American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026, that would do the mandatory version for transmission. It requires data centers to pay all of their associated transmission costs. Sen. Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat, put it this way: "It takes the incremental additions to the grid that would be necessary to serve those things, and it ascribes those costs to the developers, not to ratepayers." It's a proposal for now, with no force yet, and negotiators are aiming for a vote after the midterms. Language on wind and solar projects is still unsettled.
My read is that the principle now has support from both parties and from PJM itself, which says it wants costs to land on "the customers driving those costs." Data centers should pay for what they add to the grid. What's missing is a rule that binds anyone, and every path to one now runs into 2027 or past an election.
One Office, One Buying Decision
Picture Dana, who runs a 12-person bookkeeping firm in Ohio, served by a utility inside PJM's territory. Four of her laptops are five years old and slow at tax time. Her usual habit is to wait for holiday sales and buy in January.
Micron's outlook argues against waiting for memory prices to fall. Before Dana buys anything, she needs a short inventory: each machine's age, how much memory it has, battery health, and whether its memory and storage can be upgraded or are soldered to the board. That list tells her which machines can be stretched another year with a cheap repair and which ones need replacing.
Her pilot is small and bounded. She replaces only the four oldest laptops now, and she specifies enough memory for the full life of each machine, since a laptop she can't upgrade later locks in today's choice. She gets two written quotes for the same configuration and saves them as her baseline. Each month through spring, she asks for a fresh quote on that same machine. If prices keep rising, the early purchase paid off in cash. If they fall, she knows exactly how much the head start cost her.
The added work is real. Someone has to move files, check warranties and set up the new machines, and in a 12-person firm that can easily eat an afternoon of billable time per laptop. Where it can fail is easy to see: the cheapest configuration is tempting when prices are high, and a machine with too little memory will feel slow years before it wears out. Dana sets the per-laptop ceiling and the purchase date herself, and her outside IT contractor has the authority to stop any order that falls below the minimum spec they agreed on.
Her power bill is harder to plan. PJM's purchase is on hold, and the Senate fix is in limbo. For now, the useful move is to watch her utility's next rate filing in Ohio and see whether data center costs show up in it.
Opportunity Radar
Small offices without IT staff are about to face a replacement cycle at sharply higher prices, and Micron expects fewer new devices sold over the next two years. That makes keeping existing machines alive a service people will pay for. I'd offer a flat-fee annual device checkup for offices of 5 to 50 people. It would cover battery and storage replacements where the hardware allows, a clean reinstall, and a written schedule that tells the owner which machines to replace first and with how much memory. Test it cheaply by offering the audit to five local businesses at a fixed price and seeing whether two of them pay for the follow-up work. Walk away if storage chip prices, which rose about 30 percent at Micron last quarter, push repair costs close to the price of a new machine. Walk away too if most of the machines you see have parts soldered to the board.
What You Can Do With This
If you buy devices for a small business
Take inventory this month and rank machines by age and repairability. Replace the oldest ones on a schedule, and specify memory for the full life of the machine. Save your quotes so you can see whether buying early paid off.
If you're shopping for a phone or laptop at home
When your current device still works, a battery or storage repair may buy you a year. Once you do need to replace it, check whether the memory can be upgraded later. If it can't, buy the amount you'll want three years from now, because Micron's outlook points to tighter supply through 2028.
If you pay an electric bill in the Mid-Atlantic or Midwest
Find out whether your utility is in PJM's territory, and watch its next rate case at your state utility commission. If your commission takes public comments, use them to ask how data center costs are being assigned. When your senators talk about data centers and power bills, ask them whether they back a rule that's mandatory or one that states only have to consider.
The Bigger Picture
AI's costs are reaching households through physical bottlenecks, and physical bottlenecks run on construction schedules. Memory relief depends on new Micron factories that open between mid-2027 and 2030. The grid fix depends on a power purchase now set for February 2027 and a Senate bill that waits on the midterms. Builders and regulators set those dates on their own clocks, whatever the AI companies announce. My forecast, based on what Micron and the regulators said this week, is that device prices stay high through 2027. I also expect state utility commissions to settle more of the power-cost fight in that time than Congress does. The practical move is to plan purchases around those construction dates and treat any holiday sale as a bonus.
References
Micron Technology Fiscal Q4 2026 Earnings Call Prepared Remarks (Micron, Sept. 30, 2026) Micron Technology, Inc. Reports Record Fiscal Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2026 Results (Micron press release via Investing News Network, Sept. 30, 2026) Transcript: Micron Technology Q4 2026 Earnings Conference Call (Benzinga, Sept. 30, 2026) Micron Q4 2026 Earnings: Live Updates (TheStreet, Sept. 30, 2026) Chinese Phone Makers Raise Prices of Flagship Models as Memory Costs Surge (Caixin Global, Sept. 29, 2026) Laptop Maker Says DDR5 SO-DIMMs Are 6x Pricier Than Last Year (Tom's Hardware, Sept. 25, 2026) PJM Territory Served (PJM Interconnection) FERC Chair Slams PJM "Mess" as Country's Largest Grid Operator Delays Power Auction (Utility Dive, Sept. 30, 2026) FERC Accepts PJM Reliability Backstop Proposal (PJM Inside Lines, Sept. 29, 2026) Voluntary Ratepayer Protection Bill Blocked in Senate Again (Roll Call, Sept. 30, 2026) US Senate Rejects Bill Targeting AI Data Centre Electricity Costs (Al Jazeera, Sept. 30, 2026) Heinrich, Lee, Capito, and Whitehouse Introduce Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 (Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Democrats, Sept. 30, 2026) Senate Unveils Bipartisan Deal Tackling Energy and Data Centers (Deseret News, Sept. 30, 2026)