And expect higher prices for just about everything that uses RAM. An AMD executive predicts that PC builders will likely make piecemeal upgrades this year, instead of building entirely new systems. And new AI supercomputers from NVIDIA and AMD are gobbling up the RAM market. At CES 2026, it was hard not to notice the dire year ahead for the computing industry, one that will likely lead to higher prices and more limited availability for consumer goods across the board. Really, though, the show just confirmed what was apparent since RAM prices skyrocketed over the last few months, driven by demand from AI datacenters.

It's not enough to champion AI hardware that supports local large language models, generative AI, and the like. Hardware vendors need to step up and serve as a middleman -- if not an outright developer -- for those local AI apps, too. At MWC 2024 (formerly known as Mobile World Congress, aka one of the world's largest mobile trade shows), the company this week announced a Qualcomm AI Hub, a repository of more than 75 AI models specifically optimized for Qualcomm and Snapdragon platforms. Qualcomm also showed off a seven-billion-parameter local LLM, running on a (presumably Snapdragon-powered) PC, that can accept audio inputs. Finally, Qualcomm demonstrated an additional seven-billion-parameter LLM running on Snapdragon phones.

Apple has long been the lone wolf of the personal computer industry in maintaining its own operating system instead of licensing Microsoft's Windows as rivals do. Tuesday it struck out further from the pack by launching its first laptops and desktops built on processors designed wholly in house. The silicon shift gives Apple new control over its own destiny--and perhaps the future of the personal computer. The change was long expected. Tuesday the company unveiled the first Macs built on a processor, the M1, designed by Apple's own chip engineers, abandoning the industry's dominant supplier, Intel.