Consumers are feeling the effects of the AI compute crunch, as supplies dwindle and prices rise.
The Mac Mini computer, previously a niche product, is now all but out of stock, The Wall Street Journal reported, because the no-frills, high-powered machine is the most cost-effective way to run locally hosted AI agents, such as OpenClaw.
And Anthropic will start charging some business customers directly for the computing power they use, on top of a flat fee per user, according to The Information; a spike in demand since the introduction of its coding agent has driven up the AI company’s costs.The resulting increase could mean some of Anthropic’s heaviest users see their bills triple.