The chip shortage has become a headache for the technology market over the last few months. This has taken product prices sky-high. To add to it, Apple’s memory and storage manufacturer SK Hynix has warned Apple that the shortage situation is likely to last till the year 2030. Meaning, we won’t be seeing a decrease in the price till 2030.

Apple is one among the 14 companies who has priority order deal with Hynix but the deal doesn’t lock in prices. It includes a mechanism that reflects market conditions within a price range agreed with customers, so SK Hynix can still raise prices. Apple usually holds the upper hand with suppliers, but the chip shortage has flipped that.

As per SK Hynix, AI is the primary culprit for the shortage of chips. The tremendous growth of AI has increased demand for chips, and production is unable to keep up the pace. Leading-edge chip development processes are complex and technically difficult. We may be able to add new production facilities to increase the supply, but it could take a long time to build.

Next in line are printed circuit boards. According to Nikkei Asia, the production of  printed circuit boards could face the same shortage issues in the future as the demands are increasing.  Newer boards have more layers, which may reduce the space constraints but increase complexity. Also, these boards have higher bandwidth requirements, which could reduce the number of suppliers.

Apple said it was working to limit the increases, but so far, buyers are still paying more.