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Here’s the thing, what if memory manufacturers take this opportunity to collude and basically never reduce the price of memory below the current levels since it’s too hard for a new competitor to just rise up and undercut them? Everything I hear about is how hard and risky it is to spin up a new fab. And by doing this, they ensure local LLMs never become feasible for the vast majority of people and AI companies solid…
I assume that memory manufacturers don’t really care where the money is coming from, as long as the "numbers go up" game is working. NVIDIA in their recent quarterly report stopped categorizing "Geforce" as a single category, and merged it into "Edge-Computing". If you are a PC Gamer or PC Enthusiast as I am, then we have some dark times ahead.
Or, we could be fucked.
Here’s the thing, what if memory manufacturers take this opportunity to collude and basically never reduce the price of memory below the current levels since it’s too hard for a new competitor to just rise up and undercut them? Everything I hear about is how hard and risky it is to spin up a new fab. And by doing this, they ensure local LLMs never become feasible for the vast majority of people and AI companies solid…
Here’s the thing, what if memory manufacturers take this opportunity to collude and basically never reduce the price of memory below the current levels since it’s too hard for a new competitor to just rise up and undercut them? Everything I hear about is how hard and risky it is to spin up a new fab. And by doing this, they ensure local LLMs never become feasible for the vast majority of people and AI companies solid…
Right now their opportunity cost is too high.
> risky it is to spin up a new fab
You don't need a new fab. You can build memory in 20 years old fab.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, god willing, but it'll be just as likely that we'll blissfully consume 100 million token contexts in that case.
isn't there a law for that? as things become cheaper you consume more?
As you stated it, it would merely be a property of (nearly) all demand curves. Jevons paradox only happens sometimes. It isn't a law.
Here’s the thing, what if memory manufacturers take this opportunity to collude and basically never reduce the price of memory below the current levels since it’s too hard for a new competitor to just rise up and undercut them? Everything I hear about is how hard and risky it is to spin up a new fab. And by doing this, they ensure local LLMs never become feasible for the vast majority of people and AI companies solid…
Then that's a cartel and hopefully regulators will act.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Keeping prices at this level is precisely how one or more competitor will rise up. Making memory isn’t super hard. That’s why it is a commodity. The problem with the memory market is that up and down cycles have bankrupted the vast majority of players in the past. Now we only have 3 players left except for a few smaller ones in China. The reason memory prices can stay high for years in this mega cycle is because the…
> up and down cycles have bankrupted the vast majority of players in the past Exactly, so what’s the incentive for anyone to sink half a billy into building out more capacity. The existing players get to rest on their laurels and succeed whether or not the AI bubble busts.
Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron all have to balance between capex spending, making as much profit as possible, and risk of bankruptcy.
I bought 96GB of RAM a couple of years ago for ~$250. That same RAM now costs $1200!
Those are not normal pricing. Before the pricing collapse in early 2020, 96GB DDR5 would have cost about $450 to $500. And I will need to restate again the cost of DRAM hasn't really changed much in the past 20 years. Its price just goes up and down in cycles.
So in reality it is more like going from $500 to $1300. But consumer felt it was more like going from $200 to $1300.
Crucial are already selling DRAM made by CXMT. And China are already throwing money at it. I doubt the memory bubble will burst in next 12-24 months. As in going back to money losing DRAM pricing. As they will all pivot to HBM or other money making products. But the bulk of lower end consumer DDR5 or LPDDR5 will goes to Chinese Foundry. Assuming they have figure out how to do them well. Which they have improved but are still so far away from industry leaders.
Normally memory maker will push the next DDR standard to market just to push out Chinese competitors, I am not sure it will work the same this time around. DDR5 have plenty of other usage / demands.
As long as the discussion seems focused on memory, I'd suspect the latter, but if its really the semiconductor boules/wafers, then I'd expect the boule growers to profit, not the memory makers, who just pass on the cost.
So which is it?