{"id":658105,"date":"2026-08-26T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=658105"},"modified":"2026-08-26T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T14:00:00","slug":"this-is-crazy-ftc-chair-responds-to-soaring-chip-costs-floats-possible-antitrust-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=658105","title":{"rendered":"“This Is Crazy” – FTC Chair Responds To Soaring Chip Costs, Floats Possible Antitrust Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

“This Is Crazy” – FTC Chair Responds To Soaring Chip Costs, Floats Possible Antitrust Action<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

We\u2019ve covered soaring \u201cchipflation<\/u><\/a>\u201d for months and the trend does not seem to be abating. Nvidia is reportedly informing<\/u><\/a> its largest customers to expect price hikes of at least 15%<\/strong> for next year, possibly to set expectations of a still larger <\/em>move upward\u2026 and meanwhile the semi component in the PPI looks like a 2021 memecoin:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All this has earned the attention of FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson, who apparently enjoys building his own personal computers. In an interview<\/u><\/a> last week in Aspen, Ferguson said he was floored by the recent explosion in prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cI build my own desktops at home mostly for fun, and a year ago, I decided that my rig needed to be updated, and I was like, \u2018Oh well, you know, RAM is pretty cheap right now, maybe I\u2019ll do that.\u2019 And then the job got busy, and I was like, \u2018I\u2019ll take a look at this later.\u2019 In six months, I looked at RAM prices and went, \u2018Oh my God, I\u2019m not building this right now. This is crazy.\u2019\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

As we covered last month<\/u><\/a>, consumer electronics across the board are forecasting price hikes in the double digits, with Samsung tablets and Xbox consoles expected to increase by 20-25% <\/strong>by next year, per Haver Analytics. On this topic, Ferguson added that he \u201c[does not] want consumers to have to pay way more for chips than they have to for all sorts of other applications, including the phones that we have cast all about us.\u201d<\/p>\n

And just yesterday, Amazon announced<\/a> 60% price hikes<\/strong> for its major hardware products, blaming the chip shortage.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In April, Senator Bernie Moreno, who represents many car manufacturers in Ohio, wrote<\/u><\/a> to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick asking the government to restrict chip exports to increase domestic supplies, citing concern that the American auto industry won’t be able to compete on the global market due to “higher prices and supply delays” of chips.<\/p>\n

FTC Chair Ferguson floated the idea of using antitrust measures to crack down on some of the chip giants, <\/strong>in an effort to \u201cfocus on the meat and potatoes\u201d of what\u2019s fueling the broader AI-related inflation crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat we can do,\u201d he said when asked about whether his agency could intervene. \u201cThat\u2019s just ordinary industrial organization economics and antitrust,\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"
FTC chair Andrew Ferguson (right) sat down with CNBC\u2019s Brian Sullivan last week at the Technology Policy Institute\u2019s Aspen summit.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know when consolidation there becomes dangerous. We know when agreements are likely to raise prices or reduce competition or cut off innovation, as opposed to trying to get out in front of the AI developers,\u201d Ferguson continued. \u201cIt would be insane for a regulator to say, \u2018I know where it\u2019s going, and I\u2019m going to make predictive regulatory choices on that basis.\u2019 But further back in the supply chain, that we can apply ordinary antitrust to.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pressed on a hypothetical merger between Nvidia and chip designer ARM, the chairman appeared to issue a soft warning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if Nvidia and ARM were to merge, we would have to take a very careful look at that,\u201d <\/strong>Ferguson said. \u201cThat is antitrust enforcer speak for, you know, we would have concerns.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ferguson said earlier in the conversation that keeping AI\u2019s raw inputs competitive is his top antitrust priority.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to make sure that the markets for the inputs for AI remain competitive. I don\u2019t want there to develop overnight sudden bottleneck monopolies in the inputs for AI that deprive downstream users of the benefits of competition because someone upstream in the supply chain gets to jack up everyone\u2019s prices because it\u2019s enjoying a monopoly and maintaining it illegally,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Some foreign chip makers are already under fire for potential collusion and price fixing.<\/p>\n

In June, a class action lawsuit was filed against the three dominant DRAM makers – South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix and America’s Micron.\u00a0The lawsuit alleges that the three companies, which control ~90% of the DRAM semiconductor, have conspired to restrict the supply of memory and have driven prices up 697% compounded by 2022 to 2026. The lawsuit alleges all three companies had simultaneous production cuts and have not expanded supply despite record prices.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit notes: \u201cDRAM is embedded in virtually every electronic device manufactured today. When Defendants coordinate to restrict DRAM supply and inflate prices, the cost increase is passed through to consumers across every one of these product categories\u2014smartphones, PCs, gaming consoles, servers, automobiles, and consumer electronics. No device category escapes the impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

If found guilty, it wouldn\u2019t be the first time.<\/p>\n

In the mid-2000s, Samsung<\/u><\/a> and Hynix<\/u><\/a> pleaded guilty to fixing DRAM prices. Samsung paid a whopping $300 million fine, the second largest criminal antitrust fine in U.S. history at the time.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nWed, 08\/26\/2026 – 10:00<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“This Is Crazy” – FTC Chair Responds To Soaring Chip Costs, Floats Possible Antitrust Action We\u2019ve covered soaring \u201cchipflation\u201d for months and the trend does not seem to be abating. Nvidia is reportedly informing its largest customers to expect price hikes of at least 15% for next year, possibly to set expectations of a still… Continue reading “This Is Crazy” – FTC Chair Responds To Soaring Chip Costs, Floats Possible Antitrust Action<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":658106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-658105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-border-security","category-immigration","category-immigration-reform","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=658105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/658106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=658105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=658105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=658105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}