Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

Moves like this should be illegal.

It's becoming increasingly clear that OpenAI is going to get lapped by Google on technical merits. So this is the "code red" solution? Supply shenanigans?

They are getting beat in the developer market by Anthropic. And getting beat on fundamental tech by Google. This is a company whose ostensible mission is to "benefit all of humanity" ...

Seems like it is, but the question is whether the current Justice Department will do anything about it.

> Budget brands normally buy older DRAM fabrication equipment from mega-producers like Samsung when Samsung upgrades their DRAM lines to the latest and greatest equipment. This allows the DRAM market to expand more than it would otherwise because it makes any upgrading of the fanciest production lines to still be additive change to the market. However, Korean memory firms have been terrified that reselling old equipment to China-adjacent OEMs might trigger U.S. retaliation…and so those machines have been sitting idle in warehouses since early spring.

This seems to almost be mentioned off-hand, but isn't this a really bad and un-free market, and a much bigger issue? Korean companies are afraid of doing business with Chinese companies because of the US, because of retaliation? This was not the "free and global market" I thought we were supposed to have at this point.

If production lines of DRAM are hindered by the politics of a unrelated 3rd party, then this seems to be a stronger cause of the current shortage than "a very large customer buying a lot in a short period of time".

I have a nice little house in Spain, I'm willing to trade it for 128GB of RDIMM DDR5.

There's nothing dirty about this deal. When making a large deal with one vendor he didn't disclose to them that he was making a deal with another vendor. That's pretty normal when you're trying to buy a lot of stuff. Otherwise, they can collude to shake you down.

I'm not thrilled about this genre of "guy I don't like does totally normal thing so it's bad". It's too engagement baity.

EDIT: Though even that may be wrong. TechCrunch reports that it was a joint meeting between the South Korean President, the heads of the two companies, and Sam Altman. I won't claim that TC is the bible but there's lots of stuff being reported that makes no sense, and this is a good deal for both these companies so it's more believable than news from someone that OpenAI is going to buy a bunch of wafers and stick it in a warehouse.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/01/openai-ropes-in-samsung-sk...