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Memory has grown to nearly two-thirds of AI chip component costs

epoch.ai

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Re: Memory has grown to nearly two-thirds of AI chip component costs

#451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason I still haven't heard any predictions on when new fabs will come online to meet the current demand. This shouldn't be too hard to find out, since the building time of fabs is very predictable process. The difficult question is more whether foreseeable memory demand will remain at the current level, grow even further, or shrink again.

It's very easy to find out when the new fabs come online. Try asking Claude or ChatGPT.

They say around 2028. See https://manufacturing.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/hi-t...

Original source (paid): https://asia.nikkei.com/business/tech/semiconductors/memory-...

Re: Memory has grown to nearly two-thirds of AI chip component costs

#452
post #403
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do about nationality, it has everything to do with building and running a brand new, highly technical, mass production facility.

The west absolutely loves enshitified products. So why not sell them what they want? If they wanted quality they would pay slightly more and do something about it.

It's pretty sad it used to not be so bad in the US. This is what happens when ethics and morals are removed from the culture.

Re: Memory has grown to nearly two-thirds of AI chip component costs

#453
post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not just DRAM market, but the GPU market soon China doesn't have EUV fabs... They've pushed DUV impressively far... but until they get EUV working industrially (and reasonable timelines are at least 2-4 years for that) it shouldn't be possible for them to compete for that market. > China is the great equalizer of the world. China is hardly an egalitarian society...

There are no egalitarian societies. Societies in the west favour the super rich and believing anything else is simply delusional. Sorry to burst the bubble.

To paraphrase Asimov:

If you think that South Africa is absolutely egalitarian, you're wrong.

If you think that Norway is absolutely egalitarian, you're also wrong.

But if you think that "South Africa is egalitarian" is as wrong as "Norway is egalitarian", then your views are more wrong than both of them combined.

To state that no country is absolutely egalitarian does not mean that "China is hardly egalitarian" has to be wrong. And even if some other country (say Norway) were to be as hierarchical as China, that would not disprove the claim that China is hardly egalitarian. It would just mean there exist other inegalitarian countries too.

Re: Memory has grown to nearly two-thirds of AI chip component costs

#454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a horrible thought. Really horrible. You should come to China and work in those factories and mines for some years by yourself.

You should try to see how poor US Americans have to life. Normal people who have to wait for an event were doctors do free health care in a sport gym for a handful of days.

The Chinese healthcare system is not so different from that in the US. It is primarily employer-sponsored insurance, with subsidized insurance programs for poor and rural folk.

Up until 2005, roughly 10% of the population couldn't even access healthcare, at which point the PRC built out more care centers and invested in training more doctors, but there's still a significant shortage, such that scalpers sell outpatient appointment tickets for 10-15x markup over the actual appointment cost.

There's plenty of ways the two countries are different, but healthcare seems like an odd choice to try to "one-up" the US on, even if its programs like medicare, medicaid, social security disability and others still leave gaps.

Re: Memory has grown to nearly two-thirds of AI chip component costs

#455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With enough solar panels it is!

Not quite. Free for approximately 8 hours (assuming perfect weather conditions) and excluding unit cost and maintenance cost. It has a cost.

My area has a net-metering plan available, so you can send any surplus out to the grid to offset energy pulled from the grid, essentially treating the grid like a large battery. That can extend the 8 hours into full 24-hour coverage with enough panels.

Re: Memory has grown to nearly two-thirds of AI chip component costs

#456
post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not just DRAM market, but the GPU market soon China doesn't have EUV fabs... They've pushed DUV impressively far... but until they get EUV working industrially (and reasonable timelines are at least 2-4 years for that) it shouldn't be possible for them to compete for that market. > China is the great equalizer of the world. China is hardly an egalitarian society...

The future is here now, it’s just not evenly distributed. China will mass produce something to the point that it is widely distributed. That is how China acts as a great equalizer on a global scale. Another way China is a great equalizer is their willingness to do business with anyone that can pay.

China is willing to do business while giving zero fucks about the environment they are destroying and the global warming they are causing. It really blows my mind people support the china thing so much around here.

Re: Memory has grown to nearly two-thirds of AI chip component costs

#457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the person you’re replying to, but RAM has historically been a boom-or-bust business, and companies that invest to meet demand during a boom cycle usually have that new capacity come online just in time for the bust. If it was just variable costs and new capacity was available today they’d do it. But there are substantial fixed costs and delays to increasing capacity, and that uncertainty makes it risky.

That's such a nonsensical argument, it holds for every other business too and in this case it's just a lame excuse for monopolization. If you are that chicken and can't stomach competition you should not be in business anyway. The current RAM manufactures were convicted of conspiracy to manipulate prices back in the 2000s or thereabout, doing so is their modus operandi, but this time the government is participating i…

There are other boom/bust businesses that have had waves of bankruptcies. The commodity sector is of particular note. You're seeing the same reluctance to spin up new oil rigs in the shale industry for similar reasons, despite record high energy prices.

Re: Memory has grown to nearly two-thirds of AI chip component costs

#458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TSMC doesn’t get to take the profit that currently accrues to Nvidia and Apple, even though they absolutely could from a business/leverage perspective, because they are an economic colony of the United states and hiking their prices (which Apple and Nvidia would have almost no choice but to pay, but would upset their benefactors) would jeopardize their national security/defense. In a world where TSMC is functionally…

Got me curious, how does TSMC price their products? Why don't they optimize for their own profitability?

TSMC builds new bleeding edge fabs and then amortizes them for many different customers over a decade or more, starting with higher margin customers (apple, nvidia, etc) and working down as time goes on and the higher margin customers then move on to newer plants. Today's bleeding edge fabs become tomorrow's mass market fabs for lower margin chips that go into cars/toasters/etc. The idea is that the early adopters pay for a decent chunk of the CAPEX and then it becomes a commodity play. It's the same way some auto manufacturers put new tech into their premium cars, then it trickles down to the mass market cars over time.

It's the main reason outsourcing fabs is so much more economical. If NVIDIA built fabs just for itself, the fab's CAPEX would be amortized over fewer components than if a third party did, even if NVIDIA was the largest customer. It's also one of the main reasons Intel fell behind. So much of their cashflow was to build fabs that made an order of magnitude less chips than TSMC. Even worse, they had to write down the CAPEX for the fabs, which affected their financial statements.

Anyways, companies like apple and nvidia have very long term horizons and contracts, which probably have first right of refusal contracts on capacity, etc. In the short to medium term, apple probably isn't paying much more for most components. If this memory shortage lasts decades, they'll eventually end up paying more.

Re: Memory has grown to nearly two-thirds of AI chip component costs

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future is here now, it’s just not evenly distributed. China will mass produce something to the point that it is widely distributed. That is how China acts as a great equalizer on a global scale. Another way China is a great equalizer is their willingness to do business with anyone that can pay.

China is willing to do business while giving zero fucks about the environment they are destroying and the global warming they are causing. It really blows my mind people support the china thing so much around here.

China is deploying more renewables than most of the world, in some calculations outspending the rest of the world.

Chinese per-capita emissions have peaked at lower level than US and are already falling.

Re: Memory has grown to nearly two-thirds of AI chip component costs

#460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future is here now, it’s just not evenly distributed. China will mass produce something to the point that it is widely distributed. That is how China acts as a great equalizer on a global scale. Another way China is a great equalizer is their willingness to do business with anyone that can pay.

China is willing to do business while giving zero fucks about the environment they are destroying and the global warming they are causing. It really blows my mind people support the china thing so much around here.

Do you think that OpenAI or Google gives any fucks?
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