The boom in AI has caused the same problem that the clamor for electronics did during the COVID War: there aren’t enough computer chips to meet the demand.

The shortage could last as long as three years, analysts told CNN, while others see it ending before 2025.

Microsoft’s latest annual report flagged a shortage of processors essential in training AIs and helping them make millions of calculations at a time as a possible risk to investors.

The shortage will affect AI developers as well as businesses and individuals needing hardware to make use of AIs.

“We’re so short on [processors], the less people that use the tool, the better,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, told the U.S. Senate in May. 

The relatively few companies making the necessary chips already are working at capacity, CNN said.

There is a “huge sucking sound” coming from businesses representing the unrivaled demand for AI, chip industry analyst Raj Joshi at Moody’s Investors Service told CNN. “Nobody could’ve modeled how fast or how much this demand is going to increase,” 

Nvidia, which owns 84 percent of the market for the specialized chips, will see “unparalleled” revenue growth in the months ahead, Joshi said.

Making the shortage worse, chip makers face an ongoing shortage of a key component needed to integrate processing and memory functions in the required processors.

The chip shortage is expected to ease as more manufacturing comes online and as competitors to Nvidia also expand their offerings. But that could take as long as two to three years, some industry experts say.