Reminds me of that time Samsung wouldn’t sell ram to Samsung because they needed to compete with the demand from Samsung.
Asha Sharma standing on the glass cliff.
She and Xbox will be gone inside of two years.
I haven’t bought an XBox since the 360 because it was such a vapid upgrade path.
They could start manufacturing ram? Or fund startups trying to make ram?
Seriously is there no way to get out of having only 2-3 chip and memory makers?
They’re going to start up an entire RAM company to fill a temporary shortage?
Yes, then they’ll be shortage resistant
That still might take 10y because lithography printers aren’t cheap, their location isn’t cheap, and so much more. Once you watch an Intel, TSMC, or Texas Instru… chip factory tour.
Wait, why doesn’t Texas Instrument cash in or did they offshore their production too?
Fun fact…the chip maker and the calculator company are completely seperate. Don’t really know why it’s fun but well it is a fact.
They’re already selling silicone designed twenty years ago at absurd markup, so Texas Instruments has no need to jeopardize that with the AI fad.
You cant just “fund a startup trying to make ram”. Chip fabrication is probably the most difficult and capital intensive production process there is. What manufacturing more ram looks like is investing tens of billions of real money (not the you give us stock we let you use our GPU deals the AI companies have been doing) and then waiting 5-10 years before the fab you funded starts to make chips, and hope prices are still high by then.
That’s why the existing manufactures are slow to scale up, they arent sure that the current spike in demand will still be there by the time their scaling up increases production.
Yes, but also cartel behavior. Those same 3 manufacturers have been found guilty of it in the past, and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if they were fixing prices again now. See this video by Gamers Nexus.
If only there was something like a chip act that the government could have provided that capital….
Of all companies, though, Microsoft is one of the few who could easily afford to sink a few billion into starting in-house chip production.
And even if they only ever produce chips for their own products, they’ll still probably come out ahead in the long run, because of all the money they’ll save on not paying inflated prices for others’ chips to use in Microsoft hardware.
That ‘in the long run’ part is the problem, though. Corps can never see beyond the next quarterly earnings report. An investment that will take years to pay off … that’s just out of the question.
Honestly, no. There is no fast way to spin up fabs for this stuff. A lot of lithography equipment for the top tier stuff is made by 1 supplier, stocking a shitload of fabs with the right gear just isn’t something they can do.
IMHO, the fastest way out of this mess would be for governments to regulate how supply is spilt between consumer and enterprise products.
A lot of lithography equipment for the top tier stuff is made by 1 supplier
So maybe invest in that and become another top-tier supplier of lithography equipment?
Or just build hardware that’s easier to make
I would gladly go back to 2012-era hardware if it meant I could afford it and people maintained software for it
The “demand” is in the future. It may never be realized. There’s no money in starting a chip fab when there’s only a manufactured shortage. The chip companies aren’t adding capacity because they don’t need it.
Eh … even with the popping of the AI bubble, the long-term future is bright for any new chip manufacturer. The world is only becoming more and more electronic, with more and more gadgets needing advanced chips. When the AI bubble goes boom, demand may temporarily drop, but in the long term demand will rise overall.
The startup cost for a chip fab is MONSTROUS. Add the fact that the incumbents have already been convicted of being a cartel once (or more?), and it’s going to be a heck of an industry to break into. The incumbents just will drop price
Plus it’s not like any of the major companies have been earning consumer appreciation. If a new company started today and offered similar price fora buck less than everyone else I’d buy just for the pleasure of saying I didn’t buy Nvidia
The problem is it doesn’t solve the core issue. What’s to stop an AI data center buying up all the startup’s stock and future stock also.
If you’re the one funding the startup you can just reject that
Just… lemme help folks out with the corpo speak here.
‘leading-end’
Ok now watch this ->
‘lead-ending’
mind explosion gif
I’m all for shitting on Microslop, but let’s not pretend they’re solely responsible for the memory pricing crisis.
let’s not pretend they’re solely responsible for the memory pricing crisis.
Nobody is claiming that. Did you even read the literal first sentence of the article?
the memory pricing crisis that its own AI ambitions are helping cause
Soley? No. Huge part of it? Absolutely.
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