AI boom facing new risk? How helium shortage due to West Asia war is threatening chip production

When Iranian drones and missiles struck Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, one of the world’s largest LNG hubs, the immediate concern was disruption to LPG, LNG and other gas-to-liquids supplies. But a less anticipated risk is now coming into focus, a potential hit to global chip production due to helium shortages.

Ras Laffan accounts for nearly a third of the world’s helium supply—a critical, non-substitutable input in semiconductor manufacturing. At a time when AI-driven demand for advanced chips is surging, any disruption to helium flows could have far-reaching consequences for the tech supply chain.

Speaking to Business Today, Ankush Wadhera, Managing Director and Partner at BCG says that the situation have done more than disrupt helium supply, they have exposed a deeper vulnerability in global semiconductor supply chains, where both production and transport routes remain highly concentrated and fragile.

As he explains, Helium is mission-critical and irreplaceable in key chip processes used across wafer temperature control, cooling, photolithography, vacuum environments, and cleaning. Now, with the supply chain disruption, this will cause problem as there are no easy substitutes.

The repercussions? Expensive chips.

Companies like Micron, Samsung Electronics, TSMC, could face severe challenges. Business Today did reach out to Micron but the company declined to comment.

“At the highest level, the Middle East conflict has exposed how vulnerable helium supply chains, and especially trade routes—really are. These disruptions are now visible across industries. Given the dependence on helium, near-term price increases are inevitable,” he says.

More importantly, as AI adoption accelerates, it is driving up both chip demand and production costs. More computing is shifting to edge devices like smartphones, requiring more powerful chips, while AI data centres rely on GPUs with advanced packaging.

Both processes are heavily dependent on helium, a critical input with limited supply and no easy substitutes. As demand rises and supply remains constrained, input costs increase, making semiconductors more expensive.

While legacy chips use helium to a lesser extent compared to other advanced chips typically built on older process nodes (28nm and above), they power a large part of the real economy, where cutting-edge performance isn’t always necessary.

In effect, the AI boom is not just boosting chip demand, it is also pushing up the cost of making them.

For an industry already grappling with supply chain shocks, helium is now emerging as an unexpected bottleneck. And as AI demand continues to surge, the question is no longer just about chips, but also about the critical materials that make them possible. Helium could be recycled but stock piling is a problem.

To mitigate the risk, Wadhera suggests that chipmakers will need to focus on a mix of operational and strategic levers. Building in helium recycling and reclamation systems in new fabs, improving process efficiency, and creating limited inventory buffers where feasible. Equally critical will be diversifying sourcing beyond concentrated geographies and securing long-term supply agreements. Beyond individual companies, the industry will need to collaborate at a national level to identify alternate supply sources and more resilient trade routes, reducing exposure to geopolitical shocks.