Buying a computer? AI is making it more expensive.

Artificial intelligence puts powerful new technology in consumers' hands — if they can afford to use it. The rise of AI requires enormous computing power, which in turn is leading to a shortage of memory chips. That's pushing up the price of personal computers, according to analysts with Oxford Economics — the first time those prices have risen since the early 1980s. Computer costs had steadily declined over the past 40 years until the AI boom reversed that trend. …