The global artificial intelligence buildout is outbidding handset makers for memory chips, and the resulting price rise has landed hardest on the entry level of India’s phone market. One builds AI data centres and pays a premium for high bandwidth memory. The duty exemptions cover batteries, display assemblies and charging components, not memory, because there is no domestic memory industry to protect. Semicon 2.0 should carry an explicit memory line, even if the realistic target is legacy DRAM for the domestic mass market rather than the leading edge. And the duty schedule should treat memory bound for sub-Rs 15,000 handsets the way it already treats inputs the government has decided are strategic.