Lobby in Washington increasing because of Chip Crunch caused by AI demand!

The NewYorkTimes.com reported that “The artificial intelligence boom has created a shortage of a critical commodity called memory chips, and a new front for corporate lobbying in Washington.”  The August 10, 2026 article entitled " A.I.-Driven Chip Crunch Leads to New Rush of Lobbying in Washington” (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/10/technology/memory-chip-shortage-ai.html) included these comments from Reporters Kalley Huang and Ana Swanson:

Memory chips store data in items as varied as smartphones and cars, and they are being snapped up by A.I. companies for use in giant data centers. The price of these tiny components has quadrupled over the past year, creating a problem for the White House, which has struggled to convince Americans that it has inflation under control.

Now, a wide range of industries, including medical device makers, car manufacturers and consumer electronics companies like Apple, are asking for the government’s help to get the chips they need.

The companies and their lobbyists have suggested a mix of solutions, some conventional and others highly interventionist, like federal policy that would push memory chip makers to allocate more chips to their industries, according to interviews with 18 people, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about those discussions.

Some have suggested that selling chips to a broader set of customers should be a condition for receiving money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, a program to fund semiconductor research and manufacturing in the United States, three of those people said. Others have asked the Trump administration to use a Korean War-era law called the Defense Production Act to require allocation to industries outside of A.I., five people said.

“We’re in what I would characterize as a 100-year flood on the memory pricing, with exponential increases in memory prices,” Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said last month in an earnings call.

No surprises here!