Live data from Hacker News

The RAM shortage could last years

theverge.com

81–90 of 536 posts

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wouldn’t help if another one goes bankrupt that’ll only make things worse.

Sounds like they're too big to fail, maybe we should bail them out to reinforce that they will get rewarded for making bad decisions.

Permanent public ownership of (very large stakes in) these companies doesn't seem like such a bad idea anymore, does it? It's what we used to have for most of the 20th century at least in Europe.

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add a more local hurdle as well, the Dutch power grid is at capacity and its managing company is now telling companies that planned to build a datacenter that they can't be connected to the grid until 2030, even though said companies already paid for and got guarantees about that connection. That is, memory capacity is reserved for datacenters yet to be built, but this will do weird things if said datacenter const…

> the Dutch power grid is at capacity and its managing company is now telling companies that planned to build a datacenter that they can't be connected to the grid until 2030, even though said companies already paid for and got guarantees about that connection. Are the Netherlands a large proportion of global datacenters?

Is that relevant? The grid in every country is getting ridiculously stressed by datacenters.

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#83

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…

Good point. I think both AI companies and hardware makers should pay for the damage they caused to us here. They act as a de-facto monopoly and milk us. Why is this allowed?

Because for the last 60 years we've allowed big business to buy and hollow out our legal and education systems.

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China already has a well developed DRAM industry, as DRAM is somewhat easier than logic, and can tolerate a much higher defect rate. The industry will figure this out. Another point is I often see the money argument - like country X has more money, so they can afford to do more and better R&D, make more stuff. This stuff comes out of factories, that need to be built, the machinery procured, engineers trained and hire…

If China capitalises on the big three focusing on data centre team, the big three might have a very hard time post bubble

I think the article has a giant blind spot as far as China is concerned , considering they have already a mature enough memory ecosystem via YMTC that Apple was considering sourcing from them. As well as continued expansion in the DRAM and HBM Fabs [1]. It feels like the memory cartel once again trying to incentivise their various govt to cough up some more tax breaks/funding to cushion the AI buildout bet that they made and the bubble seeming about to pop. In any case if they leave the consumer market underserved it should be no surprise if before that 2030 prediction we are all on cheaper YMTC memory modules.

[1]https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/ym...

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. I think both AI companies and hardware makers should pay for the damage they caused to us here. They act as a de-facto monopoly and milk us. Why is this allowed?

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 heuristic that regulations are "communism and totalitarianism" and this camp is used to prevent e.g. antitrust rules/enforcement. The second camp holds the heuristic that companies need to be aggressively "regulated" and this camp is used to create/sustain rules making it harder to enter the market.

The problem is that ordinary people don't have the resources to dive into the details of any given proposal but the companies do. So what we need is a simple heuristic for ordinary people to distinguish them: Make the majority of "regulations" apply only to companies with more than 20% market share. No one is allowed to dump industrial waste in the river but only dominant companies have bureaucratic reporting requirements etc. Allow private lawsuits against dominant companies for certain offenses but only government-initiated prosecutions against smaller ones, the latter preventing incumbents from miring new challengers in litigation and requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

This even makes logical sense, because most of the rules are attempts to mitigate an uncompetitive market, so applying them to new entrants or markets with >5 competitors is more likely to be deleterious, i.e. drive further consolidation. Whereas if the market is already consolidated then the thicket of rules constrains the incumbents from abusing their dominance in the uncompetitive market while encouraging new entrants who are below the threshold.

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add a more local hurdle as well, the Dutch power grid is at capacity and its managing company is now telling companies that planned to build a datacenter that they can't be connected to the grid until 2030, even though said companies already paid for and got guarantees about that connection. That is, memory capacity is reserved for datacenters yet to be built, but this will do weird things if said datacenter const…

> the Dutch power grid is at capacity and its managing company is now telling companies that planned to build a datacenter that they can't be connected to the grid until 2030, even though said companies already paid for and got guarantees about that connection. Are the Netherlands a large proportion of global datacenters?

Yes. Amsterdam has one of the largest IXPs (AMS-IX) in Europe and is also one of the largest European markets for Internet Infrastructure services (i.e. hosting, DNS provision, domain name registration, etc.)

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#87

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…

Good point. I think both AI companies and hardware makers should pay for the damage they caused to us here. They act as a de-facto monopoly and milk us. Why is this allowed?

It's a business with huge up-front capital expenses and typically very low margins. Supply is scaling up slowly because it's hard, and if you overshoot, you go out of business.

Nobody is "allowing" this. It's a natural property of being both advanced technology and a commodity at the same time.

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add a more local hurdle as well, the Dutch power grid is at capacity and its managing company is now telling companies that planned to build a datacenter that they can't be connected to the grid until 2030, even though said companies already paid for and got guarantees about that connection. That is, memory capacity is reserved for datacenters yet to be built, but this will do weird things if said datacenter const…

> the Dutch power grid is at capacity and its managing company is now telling companies that planned to build a datacenter that they can't be connected to the grid until 2030, even though said companies already paid for and got guarantees about that connection. Are the Netherlands a large proportion of global datacenters?

Amsterdam hosts a major internet exchange. It's not a bad place to build a datacenter and there are many. Northern latitude brings free air cooling, but also additional distance to clients. Lots of peers in AMS-IX, but not a lot of oceananic cable landings (one with two paths to the US, but most of the submarine cables land nearby in Europe)

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#89

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…

What kind of consumer electronics can you build with HBM? That's the startup you should be founding...

Re: The RAM shortage could last years

#90
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.

are you kidding? if spent all that money on food you guys would just use it to bullshit all day and make funny pictures, while if we spend it on AI..
Post reply on HN