IPhone 18 Gets 12GB RAM to Run Apple Intelligence Features Standard iPhone 17 Cannot

The base iPhone 18 is expected to arrive with 12GB of RAM, up from the 8GB in the current iPhone 17, according to a report from KB Securities cited by DigiTimes. The upgrade is tied directly to Apple’s most powerful on-device AI model, which requires 12GB of unified memory to run features announced at WWDC 2026: more expressive Siri voices and improved accuracy for systemwide dictation.

Those features currently run only on the iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. The standard iPhone 17 is excluded, which means buyers of Apple’s entry-level model are paying for Apple Intelligence hardware that cannot actually run the most capable on-device features. The iPhone 18 is meant to close that gap.

Supply Chain and Pricing

What makes the KB Securities report worth reading past the headline is the cost side. Apple has reportedly asked its DRAM suppliers to increase shipments of LPDDR5X chips and will continue sourcing from Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron at above-market prices. The firm suggests Apple plans to absorb those costs rather than pass them to buyers, keeping the iPhone 18’s price in line with its predecessor.

This is the second sourced report pointing the same direction. Last October, Korea’s The Bell reported the iPhone 18 would carry 50 percent more memory than the iPhone 17, which aligns with the 8GB-to-12GB jump described here. Two independent supply chain reads pointing at the same spec change, months apart, is a reasonable signal that the decision is settled.

The launch timeline splits the lineup across two halves of 2026 and 2027. The iPhone 18 Pro, Pro Max, and the foldable iPhone are expected in fall 2026, while the base iPhone 18, iPhone Air 2, and iPhone 18e follow in the first half of 2027. For anyone waiting on the standard model, that means a longer wait to access Siri AI features that Pro buyers will have had for months.