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Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

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Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#31

Post by bee_rider »

embedding-shape wrote: post #15

> 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 equipm…

Err… is there any question that the US is trying to slow down China’s high-tech computer development? I thought that was our open goal.

Countries decided the extent to which they’d like to engage in free trade together. It is a knob that we’d hope our leaders would turn strategically. (Regardless of whether or not we think our leaders actually are doing a good job of it…).

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#33

Post by dmix »

ajross wrote: post #26
dmix wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That'd probably make more sense if there wasn't also 50 other tech companies buying up RAM for the same reason (a sudden huge spike in demand due to AI taking off).

It's about volume, not a naive count of consumers. Article claims that OpenAI holds contracts for 40% of world DRAM production. That's just really obviously manipulation if they can't actually power those chips, come on.

So the prosecution will gamble that OpenAI won't in fact use the RAM in a relevant timeframe and they only bought them to exclude the other swath of AI companies from competing?

From the article

> OpenAI isn’t even bothering to buy finished memory modules! No, their deals are unprecedentedly only for raw wafers — uncut, unfinished, and not even allocated to a specific DRAM standard yet. It’s not even clear if they have decided yet on how or when they will finish them into RAM sticks or HBM! Right now it seems like these wafers will just be stockpiled in warehouses – like a kid who hides the toybox because they’re afraid nobody wants to play with them, and thus selfishly feels nobody but them should get the toys!

I guess we'll have to see if they in fact just keep "unfinished" RAM in warehouses like the article says and not roll them out into datacenters for a legitimate use as they are finished.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#35

Post by hodgehog11 »

embedding-shape wrote: post #15

> 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 equipm…

We left behind any pretense of a free global market once we entered a post-tariff world. You can't have large universal tariffs or even the threat of them and expect the market to act freely, the two are fundamentally incompatible.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#36

Post by nerdponx »

darthoctopus wrote: post #3
chasing0entropy wrote: post #2

Now this... was a really good move. OP is also marginally underestimating the impact this move would have on Google's competitiveness - they are making huge gains prototyping at light speed; this will halt their AI hardware acceleration plans pushing them back into slower software development on ever aging hardware. It also shows why Nvidia is not afraid of competitors coming out with new desgings that obsolete their…

every one of these things that make the deal "good" for OpenAI is a direct result of negative externalities for everyone else : competitors, consumers, and people who wouldn't care otherwise.

The article even says that they don't have an obvious plan for how to use the wafers they bought, and very clearly suggests that this is purely an anticompetitive tactic to force everyone else to eat a price increase that OpenAI doesn't need to face. It's clever though because if any regulatory agency starts asking questions (not that they would do that in the current USA political climate) then OpenAI can just say it's a strategic reserve, we have plans to do something with it, etc. etc. What are you going to do? Take them to court and force them to auction off some % of the stock? Set an industry-wide limit on wafer inventory? Fine them? You'd need to find some evidence that it was done maliciously, and good luck with that.

There are some negative elements of captialism that we might simply have no reasonable regulatory apparatus to deal with. Preventing indivduals and companies from having so much market power in the first place seems to be the only thing that can work consistently.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#37

Post by pshirshov »

embedding-shape wrote: post #17
pshirshov wrote: post #14

I have a 32 GiB DDR5 set, happy to exchange for $500K in cash or a nice little house in Spain.

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

No issue pal, I have that too. I can survive on my 32 GiB set for a while.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#38

Post by nextworddev »

mlsu wrote: post #11

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" ...

[flagged]

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#39

Post by embedding-shape »

bee_rider wrote: post #31
embedding-shape wrote: post #15

> 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 equipm…

Err… is there any question that the US is trying to slow down China’s high-tech computer development? I thought that was our open goal. Countries decided the extent to which they’d like to engage in free trade together. It is a knob that we’d hope our leaders would turn strategically. (Regardless of whether or not we think our leaders actually are doing a good job of it…).

> I thought that was our open goal.

Is the goal also to hurt South Korean businesses and all businesses in the world, just to "pwn China" basically?

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#40

Post by roadbuster »

> To be clear - the shock wasn’t that OpenAI made a big deal, no, it was that they made two massive deals this big, at the same time, with Samsung and SK Hynix simultaneously

That's not "dirty." That's hiding your intentions from suppliers so they don't crank prices before you walk through their front door.

If you want to buy a cake, never let the baker know it's for a wedding.

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