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The RAM shortage could last years

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Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#201

Post by metalcrow »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #11

Ok so Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron do not have the capacity to meet demand. Also, what little capacity they do have they are allocating to HBM over DRAM. Based on my limited knowledge HBM can not be easily repurposed for consumer electronics. Translation: main street is cooked for the next 3-4 years. It doesn't stop there though. OpenAI is currently mired in a capital crunch. Their last round just about sucked all th…

Do the memory makers not have a contract in place for an order this large? I assume that they aren't going to take "trust us bro" as good enough for several million dollars in orders, and even if there is a way to cancel the order it won't be free. I would assume so at least, but i would like if anyone knew for certain.

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#202

Post by matheusmoreira »

whatever1 wrote: post #147
bombcar wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t the memory makers always get left holding the bag? I feel this has happened at least three times before.

All of the capital intensive businesses face this issue. Chemicals, Shipping, Semiconductors etc. You get market signals that the demand is there, you acquire the necessary capital, you spend 5 years to build capacity, but guess what, 5 other market players did the same thing. So now you are doomed, because the market is flooded and you have low cash flow since you need to drop prices to compete for pennies. Now you…

It's not optimal, it's pathological. Definitely better than starving under communist dictatorships though.

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#203

Post by drnick1 »

saidnooneever wrote: post #41
kubb wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect that OpenAI gets as much money as they ask for for the next 10 years. There’s virtually infinite capital: if needed, more can be reallocated from the federal government (funded with debt), from public companies (funded with people’s retirement funds), from people’s pockets via wealth redistribution upwards, from offshore investment. They will be allowed to strangle any part of the supply chain they wan…

love that theres virtually infinite capital there. meanwhile in the rest of the world there is virtually no food.

The "no food in other countries" is because of failed/corrupt governments, not because people use AI to generate cat pictures in the West. The economy is not a "fixed pie" that needs to be allocated among people of the world.

Just look at Cuba, which could be a very rich country and one of the prime tourist destinations of the world.

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#204

Post by sebmellen »

metalcrow wrote: post #201
stuxnet79 wrote: post #11

Ok so Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron do not have the capacity to meet demand. Also, what little capacity they do have they are allocating to HBM over DRAM. Based on my limited knowledge HBM can not be easily repurposed for consumer electronics. Translation: main street is cooked for the next 3-4 years. It doesn't stop there though. OpenAI is currently mired in a capital crunch. Their last round just about sucked all th…

Do the memory makers not have a contract in place for an order this large? I assume that they aren't going to take "trust us bro" as good enough for several million dollars in orders, and even if there is a way to cancel the order it won't be free. I would assume so at least, but i would like if anyone knew for certain.

* several Billion dollars in orders.

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#205

Post by aidenn0 »

metalcrow wrote: post #201
stuxnet79 wrote: post #11

Ok so Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron do not have the capacity to meet demand. Also, what little capacity they do have they are allocating to HBM over DRAM. Based on my limited knowledge HBM can not be easily repurposed for consumer electronics. Translation: main street is cooked for the next 3-4 years. It doesn't stop there though. OpenAI is currently mired in a capital crunch. Their last round just about sucked all th…

Do the memory makers not have a contract in place for an order this large? I assume that they aren't going to take "trust us bro" as good enough for several million dollars in orders, and even if there is a way to cancel the order it won't be free. I would assume so at least, but i would like if anyone knew for certain.

I was interning at a company that made networking gear that was put out of business when their largest customer canceled an order within a week of the delivery date.

The customer ran out of money. In terms of where you are in line of debtors when you haven't even delivered the product to a customer, it's so far back as to be assured you won't get your money.

If the memory makers got a deposit from OpenAI as part of this deal, that is likely to be the only money they will get for any undelivered memory, particularly if OpenAI runs out of capital.

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#206

Post by tcfhgj »

lmm wrote: post #196
tcfhgj wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if the alternative is a memory-unsafe language and if not?

> and if not? If the alternative is memory-safe and easy to build, then maybe people will switch. But until it is it's irresponsible to even try to get them to do so.

Until? Just take what's out there - it's so easy to improve on Electron

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#207

Post by russdill »

cbdevidal wrote: post #96

I’m a bit of an optimist. I think this will smack the hands of developers who don’t manage RAM well and future apps will necessarily be more memory-efficient.

The demand is being driven by inference though. I really don't think there will be much motivation.

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#208

Post by shash »

fsckboy wrote: post #168

if a shortage lasts years, it's not a shortage. "The market clearing price of RAM in the face of expected sustained healthy demand should lead to a stable market for years." even if gaming is and will remain very popular for years, it and the desire to upgrade gaming rigs is still a discretionary activity with more price elasticity of demand than corporate uses for RAM in the dawn of the AI age. gamers live on the ma…

It’s not merely a “gaming vs data center“. There’s so many other places DRAM and NVM are needed - mobile, automotive, other consumer electronics,… the current situation is that _all_ of that is deprived of the memory that it needs. And much of this is critical to the real economy.

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#209

Post by lmm »

tcfhgj wrote: post #206
lmm wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and if not? If the alternative is memory-safe and easy to build, then maybe people will switch. But until it is it's irresponsible to even try to get them to do so.

Until? Just take what's out there - it's so easy to improve on Electron

Like what? Where else (that's a name brand platform and not, like, some obscure blog post's cobbled-together thing) can I start a project, push one button, and get binaries for all major platforms? Until you solve that people will keep using Electron.

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#210

Post by GreySeer »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #85
kennywinker wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allowed? We live in a neoliberal world where corporate monopolies / oligopolies aren’t even remotely regulated. If you try to do even the gentlest regulation of companies people scream about communism and totalitarianism. Unless the regulation serves the monopolies by making it harder to enter the market. It started with raegan, and even parties on the “left” in the west believe in it with very few exceptions.

> We live in a neoliberal world where corporate monopolies / oligopolies aren’t even remotely regulated. If you try to do even the gentlest regulation of companies people scream about communism and totalitarianism. Unless the regulation serves the monopolies by making it harder to enter the market. The thing that enables this is pretty obvious. The population is divided into two camps, the first of which holds the he…

Arguably a more efficient approach might just be to have a tax that adds on to corporate tax incrementally for every % of market share a company has above say 7-8%. Then dominant companies are incentivised to re-invest in improving their efficiencies rather than just buying/squeezing out competitors. A more evenly spread market would then, as a result, be against regulations that make smaller market participants less competitive, as they'd all be in relatively less table positions.
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