Dylan walks through the math showing how the AI memory crunch flows into consumer electronics: DRAM cost per gigabyte tripling turns a roughly $50 memory bill-of-materials into $150 for a 12GB iPhone, a cost increase Apple can only partly absorb. ✦ AI generated
Dylan Patel · Dwarkesh Podcast · 2026-03-13 · original ↗
plays this moment only · 76:01 — 77:31
“If you look at the bill of materials for an iPhone, what fraction of it is the memory? How much more expensive does an iPhone get if the memory is two times more expensive?”
I believe an iPhone has 12 gigabytes of memory. Each gig used to cost roughly $3-4, so that's $50. But now the price of memory has tripled. Let's say it's $12 per gig for DDR. Now you're talking about $150 versus $50. That's a $100 increase in cost for Apple.
verbatim transcript · starts at 76:01
76:01– The enormous incoming memory crunch
76:01– The enormous incoming memory crunch