The next domino to fall in the Strait of Hormuz could be… helium? And it might spell trouble for chipmakers.

The shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz as a result of the ongoing war roiling the Middle East has had plenty of consequences for the global economy already. Iran’s latest cheerful warning? Expect $200-a-barrel oil unless the United States and Israel stop bombing.

And given that multiple vessels that took the risk of trying to get through the channel have been hit with missiles on Wednesday alone, and mine-laying vessels are in the area, it seems unlikely that the waterway will be safe to travel any time soon.

But while drivers across the US will already have seen gas prices shooting up, and consumers may soon notice challenges getting hold of cheap Chinese imports — according to the United Nations, something like 11% of all global trade traverses the narrow strait.

But there’s another problem ahead: helium supplies could be crimped because of the war.

The alarm bells were rung by South Korean government officials last week, cautioning that semiconductor production could be disrupted if key materials from the Middle East cannot be sourced, including helium. South Korea’s chip sector, led by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, produces roughly two-thirds of the world’s memory chips. US-listed Micron is another big player. Helium is essential in semiconductor manufacturing, particularly for heat management and high-spec industrial processes.

Because it’s chemically inert and nonreactive, manufacturers use helium as a blanket and purge gas around silicon wafers to insulate the process from unwanted reactions as the wafers are etched. Its superhigh thermal conductivity and cryogenic properties also make it a go-to coolant for wafers, tools, and some EUV infrastructure, helping remove heat quickly enough to enable further miniaturization.

As AI interest peaked, so did demand for helium. Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta are collectively on track to spend roughly $650 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026, with that build-out feeding demand for the advanced memory chips that in turn depend on helium-heavy manufacturing. The semiconductor industry overtook the previous biggest consumer of helium across industries — use in MRI machines — in October 2025, data from analytics firm TechCET shows. Demand surged 14.6% in 2025, according to TechCET, and will grow by an average of 6.3% in the years to come, it forecasts.

And it’s not as if chips were already in abundant supply. Insatiable demand for AI has driven chip prices higher as manufacturers struggle to keep up.

“It’s a pretty big mess,” said Phil Kornbluth, founder and president of Kornbluth Helium Consulting. Roughly a third of the world’s supply of helium comes from Qatar as a byproduct of the country’s massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) production, which itself is facing headaches trying to get its cargoes out of the Middle East and to the rest of the world.

QatarEnergy halted production at its massive Ras Laffan facility — the planet’s biggest LNG export hub — after Iranian drone strikes in the early days of the conflict, declaring force majeure on contracts and cutting weekly output from 1.7 million metric tons to just 0.4 million metric tons. Because no LNG tankers have been able to leave the region, producers are shutting their gas wells — meaning that the byproducts, like helium, aren’t entering the market either. Two of the country’s three helium plants are tied directly to LNG production, which means helium output depends on LNG continuing to flow through the strait.

That doesn’t mean we need to hit the panic button yet, however. “We’re not in a shortage right now,” said Maura Garvey, president of Intelligas Consulting, a Duxbury, Massachusetts-based consultancy in specialized gas markets. That’s in large part because the helium market has been in oversupply for years, thanks to new large sources coming onstream in Russia, Qatar, and South Africa. Yet Garvey has long cautioned her customers: “I know we’re in oversupply, but don’t get comfortable. We’re just one geopolitical event away from shortage.”

She added, “That’s exactly what’s happened.”

Annual helium demand is currently around 6 billion cubic feet a year, and while the oversupply has been able to meet that demand comfortably up to now, what’s happening in the Middle East jeopardizes the guarantee of that supply. Not all suppliers seem to be affected equally: Taiwan’s GlobalWafers said this week it held enough helium inventory to sustain operations for multiple years.

“I don’t think we’re going to see disruptions in some of these facilities for now,” Garvey said, adding that a shortfall could be managed. “It’s just, it’s going to be more costly.” At least one major supplier, she said, had already imposed a surcharge. And once the disruption occurs, resolving it is tricky. “A one-month disruption is probably going to end up with a disruption in the whole logistics chain of anywhere from two months to maybe even three months,” she estimated.

Kornbluth is more worried about the consequences for the semiconductor industry. Even if the fighting stopped immediately, restarting LNG production is far from instant. “The process of restarting the LNG plants, my understanding is that it takes around a month,” he said. “It’s not like flipping a switch and you’re back in full production.” His best-case scenario was that a two-month supply shock could “probably disrupt the market for four months before everything went back to normal.” He envisions that in the coming weeks, major helium suppliers will start declaring force majeure with their customers.

Of course, the semiconductor sector isn’t the only industry to use helium. But if you’re planning a party with a big balloon display, fear not — the helium supply snafu might not affect you. After a previous helium crunch sent prices soaring, much of the balloon trade switched to air-filled displays anyway. 

“There’s not been anything in the industry that I’ve seen suggesting that there is a shortage or a price hike again at the minute,” said John Bowler, general manager of the Balloon and Party Industry Alliance, a UK-based party trade body. “The bigger problem is that people have become so used to using air instead [of] helium.”

That leaves the world in the odd position: wedding arches may survive, but advanced manufacturing may yet feel the squeeze.