Firstly, this is not due to inflation. The price increase is explicitly (per the article even) due to increased market demand that is causing raised prices.
Secondly, Computing has always been subject to inflation. It cannot escape inflation. You may not notice it , perhaps due to the increase in performance but the cost of parts definitely has risen in the same tiers if you look over a long enough period to avoid pricing amortization
> if you... buy the same components periodically... the performance increase that consumers see doesn’t appear.
Good point and that should properly be called inflation in the semiconductor sector. We always have general inflation, but the different sectors of the economy exhibit different rates of inflation depending on the driving forces and their strength.
As of today, tariffs are the major driver of inflation and semiconductors are hit hard because the only high-volume, reasonable quality/price country has been practically excluded from the the US market by export bans and prohibitively high tariffs - that's China of course.
The other producers are in a near monopoly situation and are also acting like a cartel without shame or fear of law... which isn't there to begin with.
Inflation simply refers to the rate at which prices are increasing. It's agnostic as to the origin ( any single/combo of demand increase, supply shortage, money printing, price fixing, etc).
Inflation isn’t just "prices increasing". It’s the sustained, broad-based rise in the overall price level. Your comment treats any price increase as inflation, but economists draw a pretty clear line here: a relative price change (say, eggs getting more expensive because of a supply shock) isn’t the same thing as inflation. You can have sector-specific increases (as in this case, with RAM) that are independent of changes in the general price level.
> the cost of parts definitely has risen in the same tiers if you look over a long enough period
This is especially apparent if you’re a hardware manufacturer and have to buy the same components periodically, since the performance increase that consumers see doesn’t appear.