When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Shortages are driving prices up. Here's how to stretch your current rig until the market calms down. There's no denying that all of our next PC upgrades are likely to be more expensive than they've been in a long time. And if history is anything to go by, they won't come all the way down again.

AI cancer cures slowed by chip shortage, says UK's biggest tech boss The boss of the biggest UK-headquartered tech firm has said that artifical intelligence will find a cure for cancer that humans cannot in our lifetimes. Rene Haas, chief executive of Cambridge-based chip designer Arm Holdings, said while modelling how a DNA marker is impacted by cancer was currently too complex a problem, computers are going to solve it in the future. Haas also told the BBC that AI would lead to widespread humanoid robots in the next five years, but that its current rapid growth was being held up by a shortage of chips needed to build data centres. However, he was sceptical about the idea chips could be manufactured in the UK in the future. Arm designs the brains or CPUs of microchips already used in hundreds of billions of phones, cars, smartwatches and gadgets across the globe.

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Cars wait to refuel at a gas station in Russia. A series of Ukrainian drone attacks have forced major refineries to suspend operations, causing a fuel shortage. Russia's gasoline production fell to about 70% of domestic consumption levels by the end of August after a series of drone attacks forced major refineries to suspend operations, according to two industry sources. Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russia's energy infrastructure in a bid to curb Moscow's revenues, creating a fuel crisis that has forced Russia to import petroleum products and maintain sales restrictions across the country. After a brief respite at the end of July, when some local authorities began easing or lifting restrictions on fuel sales, shortages returned to Russian regions in August. Gasoline production at the end of August dropped to roughly the same level seen in early July, at the peak of the first wave of a fuel crisis that had been building since May, according to sources.

A GPU vendor warns price hikes are coming later this year, and I can't help wondering if that means now is the right time to pull the trigger. Well okay, now might only be the second-best time to buy a GPU--the best time was probably just before AI-crazed companies started hoovering up all the memory and storage. But unless you can go back in time, right now might be the best time for anyone considering a graphics card purchase to pull the trigger. I say that because on this week's episode of The Full Nerd I heard the hosts discussing a recent Tom's Hardware story about a GPU vendor warning that card prices are going to rise significantly in the back half of this year. The vendor, PC Partner, also predicts that "entry-level" cards will be the hardest to get.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Geekom's all-day laptop with 16GB RAM hits a new low price: $809 Laptop deals are scarce due to the ongoing memory shortage, but Geekom's new GeekBook M16 just hit $809, its lowest price since launch. Laptops have gotten pricey thanks to the global AI-driven memory and storage shortage, and great laptop deals have (unsurprisingly) dried up. Gone are the days of punchy budget laptops for under $500. But if you temper your expectations, you can still get a laptop with enough RAM and solid performance for about $800--like with this deal.

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Qualcomm is planning to raise its prices by a percentage in the double digits across its products, according to Bloomberg. The company is one of the biggest makers of smartphone processors in the world and dominates the Android landscape, with most companies using its products to power their flagship models. Among the devices that are powered by Qualcomm processors are Samsung's Galaxy series phones, including its latest foldables, the the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, Fold 8 and Flip 8. Its processors also power Microsoft CoPilot PCs, as well as wearables like smart glasses in Meta's Ray-Ban collection. As you can tell, Qualcomm's price hikes could have a big impact on pricing across brands and devices in several categories. Bloomberg says Qualcomm has already sent letters to its customers informing them about the upcoming changes.

As they scramble to keep their systems online, AI companies are making things expensive for the rest of us. Large language models such as ChatGPT and Claude are so resource-hungry that tech companies may be purchasing 70 percent of the world's supply of high-end computer memory, causing a shortage. As a result, the prices of computer memory and storage are skyrocketing: Hard drives that I bought for my reporting two years ago for $350 each were $800 when I checked two weeks ago, and are now out of stock. The prices of some laptops have gone up as much as 50 percent, and low-cost computers are being hit the hardest. Affordable entry-level computers may "disappear by 2028" according to one forecast .

Image caption, Ukraine's military described St Petersburg's oil terminal as one of the largest in Russia A major oil terminal in Russia's second city of St Petersburg in the north-west was struck overnight by Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said. He described it as key infrastructure that generates revenue for Russia's war. Ukraine also said a major Russian naval base in the region was hit. St Petersburg Governor Aleksandr Beglov said the city was under a massive drone attack, admitting the oil terminal was hit. Ukraine has recently intensified its long-range drone attacks on Russia's critical energy infrastructure, causing widespread fuel shortages.