Nothing Phone Founder Carl Pei Warns of Smartphone Market Challenges
Carl Pei, the head of Nothing, also spoke about the DRAM shortage: 2026 will be the year smartphones cease to be “affordable.” The cause? A surge in memory costs,sucked up by AI servers,which he believes could increase the bill by 30%.
Carl Pei, the head of Nothing, spoke on January 14, 2026 to announce news that will sting: the affordable smartphone is over. According to him, the model on which the industry has relied for fifteen years, namely the constant decrease in component prices, is officially dead.
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Price increases, longer delays and shortages: everything you need to understand about the RAM crisis
The same silicon wafers used for the memory in our phones are now being snatched up at a premium by tech giants to feed their AI data centers. Result? A head-on competition between your future mobile and the infrastructures of Nvidia or Google.Components that cost less than $20 last year could exceed $100 by the end of the year.
