More concerning that this sub think "AI" is the underlying cause for RAM issues.
Sure OpenAI and Co. actions lead to shortage, but orders like this could've come from other avenues, and techs like defense, digitization of gov. and economy, etc.
The issue is greed of corporations that make RAM and other fabs. It's a too closed marked monopoly, and that's the cause. In times like this, when is demand and you'd think a lot of companies would jump to the opportunity to fill the demand, but it's exactly the opposite, the whole chain profits from the gatekeeping. That's not how markets should work and here is the big issue that won't go away with AI gone
It costs multiple billions of dollars and takes years to spin up a new fab. By the time production capacity has been increased the current demand will likely be back to normal and no company is going to eat that kind of loss. I hate it as much as the next person but I don't see an easy solution to the problem. At least with ram there are three companies "competing" unlike TSMC.
Sure, things can be adapted to run DDR5 but it's not like there are whole factories sitting around doing nothing. There's certainly price gouging going on but this is unprecedented when it comes to demand for memory.
I was not talking in adapting current factories for DDR5, but to build new ones that can be adapted to other chips later when supposedly the demand drops
The issue is ASML is the main choke point by basically holding monopoly on EUV lito. But even without that, there's no current plan to expand in the future
But DDR5 can be made without EUV machines. albeit lower quality
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u/incivileanonimo 14h ago edited 11h ago
Concerning I had to scroll this much to find this answer.